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Business Wire, May 27, 2009
Searches for Free Music Downloads, Lyrics, or Screensavers
Revealed as Most Likely to Lead to Adware or Malware Laden Sites
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Some of the riskiest searches on the Internet today are associated
either with finding items for free, such as music or screensavers, or
looking for work that can be done from home, according to Internet
security company McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE). Search categories like these
are used to lure unsuspecting consumers to their Web sites. Hackers and
cybercriminals are often able to persuade searchers to download files
carrying malicious software that can cause consumers to expose their
personal and financial data.
McAfees report on The
Webs Most Dangerous Search Terms describes how
cybercriminals maximize their profits by seeking the largest pool of
possible victims with popular search terms about current events, gadgets
and celebrities. During the recession, McAfee has observed a growing
number of malicious search results targeted at people who want to save
money or earn extra income working at home.
Cybercriminals are smart, said Jeff Green, senior vice president of
McAfee Product Development & Avert Labs. Like sharks smelling blood in
the water, hackers will create related Web sites laden with adware and
malware whenever a particular topic increases in popularity.
Unsuspecting consumers are then tricked into downloading malicious
software that leads them to blindly hand over their personal assets to
cybercriminals.
McAfee researched more than 2,600 popular keywords (as defined by Google
Zeitgeist, Yahoo! Buzz and others sources) to assess the degree of risk
for each. Maximum Risk refers to the maximum percentage of risky sites a
user might encounter on a single page of search results.
As defined by McAfee, the riskiest set of keyword variations was
screensavers with a maximum risk of 59.1 percent. Nearly six out of
the top 10 search results for screensavers contain malware. One of the
single riskiest search terms in the world is lyrics, with a maximum
risk factor of one in two. Surprisingly, searches using the word Viagra,
a popular keyword that is also common in spam e-mail messages, yielded
the fewest risky sites. Searches with the safest risk profile included
health-related terms and searches about the current economic crisis.
Penny-Pinchers and Home Workers Beware
Consumers looking to save money, and/or searching for means of
additional income, should take note: searchers clicking on results that
contain the word free have a 21.3 percent chance of infecting their
PCs with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware,
viruses and other malware
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