Actress Lily Collins is
McAfee’s Most Dangerous Celebrity to search for on the Web, the company announced Tuesday.
The lead in “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” grabbed her No. 1 spot after the Internet security company researched the “riskiest” stars to put in a search engine. Pictures and stories about Collins created a “14.5 percent chance of landing on a page that tested positive for spam, adware, spyware, viruses, or other malware,” McAfee said.
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Nine of the Top 10 on the list were women. The only man to make the list was actor-director Jon Hamm at No. 8.
Collins replaced Emma Watson who held last year’s top spot.
The No. 2 spot is filled by Avril Lavigne, and No. 3 is Sandra Bullock.
“Today’s consumers often are completely unaware of security risks when searching for celebrity and entertainment news, images, and videos online, sacrificing safety for immediacy,” said Paula Greve, McAfee director of Web security research. “Cybercriminals prey on consumers’ addiction to breaking news and leverage this behavior to lead them to unsafe sites that can severely infect their computers and devices and steal personal data.”
Collins, daughter of singer Phil Collins, is currently appearing in “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones,” and starred in “Mirror, Mirror.” She made a much better list than McAfee’s Most Dangerous when she made People’s Most Beautiful People list at No. 4.
McAfee’s release comes with warnings on how to protect yourself against malware, including watching for online content that prompts you to download anything; avoiding “free downloads,” because that is the highest virus-prone search term; and avoid downloading videos from websites you don’t know and trust.
Here are the Top 10 Most Dangerous Celebrities to search on the Web, according to a McAfee news release. The percentage indicates how often an Internet search of the star would gather malicious software.
1. Lily Collins – 14.5%
2. Avril Lavigne – 12.7%
3. Sandra Bullock – 10.8%
4. Kathy Griffin – 10.6%
5. Zoe Saldana – 10.5%
6. Katy Perry – 10.4%
7. Britney Spears – 10.1%
8. Jon Hamm – 10.0%
9. Adriana Lima – 9.9%
10. Emma Roberts – 9.8%
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