{"id":78695,"date":"2017-09-18T21:30:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T04:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/?p=78695"},"modified":"2025-08-31T19:43:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T02:43:40","slug":"most-dangerous-celebrities-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/internet-security\/most-dangerous-celebrities-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Web Searches Get Complicated! Avril Lavigne Tops the 2017 Most Dangerous Celebrities List"},"content":{"rendered":"

We surf the internet to find the latest celebrity gossip, discover a new song, and even interact with our favorite stars. And cybercriminals know that. In fact, they\u2019re capitalizing on that by weaving in sneaky cyberthreats within celebrity sites. To see how cybercriminals take advantage of consumers\u2019 obsession with pop culture, we conducted the 11th annual McAfee Most Dangerous Celebrities study<\/a>, which reveals which celebrities generate the most \u201cdangerous\u201d search results, and create the biggest risk for users browsing the web.<\/p>\n

First, you must be wondering– how\u2019d we do it? McAfee conducted this study by using McAfee WebAdvisor<\/a> site ratings to determine the number of risky websites generated by searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo!, that included a celebrity name and search terms likely to yield potentially malicious websites in the results. So, which celebs gives us the most cause for concern? Here\u2019s our top 10 list:<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s two key factors as to why A-lister Avril Lavigne takes the top spot. Oddly, she\u2019s the target of an internet conspiracy theory<\/a> that suspected the real Avril died and was replaced by an imposter. And it\u2019s far from surprising that an internet conspiracy lead to unreliable sources and sketchy sites. The second reason is that in late 2016 Lavigne announced that she was working on a new album that will be released before the end of 2017. And unfortunately, content searches for new music lead many into uncertain areas of the internet.<\/p>\n

For example — \u201cAvril Lavigne + free mp3\u201d was by far the riskiest way to search for Avril Lavigne content and resulted in a risk percentage of nearly 22%. In fact, musicians dominated this year\u2019s list because of the dangers of searching for \u201cfree mp3,\u201d which accounted for approximately 40% of the risky websites. Free torrent accounted for 36% of risky websites and free mp4 accounted for 24% of risky websites.<\/p>\n

So, where do cybercriminals come in to all of this? Hackers know that consumers are looking for the latest album and movie releases from their favorite celebrities, and can use this against consumers to steal personal information. They love to leverage downloadable content like music or video files to entice consumers to visit potentially malicious websites designed to install malware.<\/p>\n

Tips to Protect Yourself From Malware<\/h2>\n

So, since music could lead to malware, the next question is, how do you ensure your favorite artist doesn\u2019t cost you your personal data? For starters, follow these tips:<\/p>\n