Brad Pitt Most Dangerous Celebrity to Search Online

Searching for celebrities online can get your computer infected and some celebs are particularly famous for that. McAfee reports that Brad Pitt has overtaken Paris Hilton as the most dangerous celebrity to search for in cyberspace.

McAfee says that Fans searching for “Brad Pitt,” “Brad Pitt downloads,” and Brad Pitt wallpaper, screen savers and pictures have an 18% chance of having their PCs infected with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware. In fact a search for “Brad Pitt screensavers” let to more than half of the resulting Web sites with malicious downloads!

McAfee warns that actors Brad Pitt and Justin Timberlake are the most dangerous men to seek on the Internet, while Beyonce and Heidi Montag top the list for women. In fact Paris Hilton, who topped 2007’s most dangerous celebrities and and Britney Spears who was ranked #4 in 2007 are now missing from the list.

Some other common search terms which are favorite with scammers are Beyonce ringtones, Justin Timberlake downloads, Heidi Montag wallpapers, Mariah Carey screen savers, Jessica Alba downloads, Lindsay Lohan downloads, Cameron Diaz images, George Clooney downloads, Rihanna pictures, Angelina Jolie downloads, Fergie screen saver, David Beckham wallpapers, Katie Holmes screen savers and Katherine Heigl pictures.

Cybercriminals often use celebrity names and images and target innocent Web surfers to download screen savers and ringtones via fake web sites that will then install viruses, spyware and malware. You need to be careful what you search for and what you download. Your favorite celebrity search could turn out dangerous…