'Dangerous Celeb' Jessica Biel Might Raise Awareness, Security VARs Say

"From a standpoint of getting people to pay attention, it does help," said Leo Bletnitsky, CEO of Las Vegas Med IT. "It's more fun, is what it really comes down to. People are interested in what celebrities are doing."

For the third year in a row, McAfee conducted a study to determine the most popular celebrities that attackers are exploiting on the Web in an effort to lure victims to malicious sites and download malware onto their systems. The study is conducted on the premise that some of the most popular celebrity searches -- such as searches containing the names Jessica Biel and Brad Pitt -- also pose the highest risk for the average user.

In short, users who search for Jessica Biel on the Internet have a one in five chance of becoming infected with spyware, adware, spam, phishing viruses, Trojan horses, Internet worms and other malicious threats, making Biel's name more dangerous than any other celebrity search term so far this year. For example, more than half of the searches for "Jessica Biel screensavers" directed users to a site containing malicious downloads.

In addition to "Jessica Biel screensavers," dangerous keyword searches included "Jessica Biel," "Jessica Biel downloads," Jessica Biel wallpaper" and "Jessica Biel photos."

Pop music star Beyonce came in second place on the "most dangerous" list for the second year in a row, setting a McAfee record for the most frequent, highly ranked celebrity in the top five most dangerous list. Inputting "Beyonce ringtones" often resulted in the download of adware and spyware, McAfee researchers said. Beyonce was followed by former "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston, who came in third on the "most dangerous" list.

The study also found that attackers were more willing to exploit young celebrities, with a rash of malware linked to sites featuring Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale and Lindsay Lohan, all of whom trumped last year's dangerous celebrities Heidi Montag and Jessica Alba.

In addition, attackers gravitated toward pairs, such as newlyweds New England Patriot Tom Brady, who came in fourth, and supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who captured the sixth position on the list.

Bletnitsky said that, despite the frivolous content, these kinds of studies featuring celebrities often piqued the curiosity of customers who might otherwise tune out a reseller presentation.

"It gets the conversation going," Bletnitsky said. "'The customer starts asking about getting viruses, saying, 'How do we prevent this?' and, 'Can that happen on our network?' "

Bletnitsky added that the McAfee study, and others like it, might help raise awareness, especially for those who think they are adequately prepared for sophisticated attacks with their existing security products.

"We're finding people are getting infected with malware even with multiple layers of AV," he said. "This [study] definitely helps."