These Are The 10 Most Dangerous Celebrities To Search For Online In 2015 (Searching Them Leads To Viruses)

Every year Intel’s McAfee releases a list of the 10 most dangerous cyber celebrities, which to the layman means ‘the 10 celebrities that an individual is most likely to get malware and/or a virus on his computer if he googles their names’. Still don’t get what I’m saying here? In 2015 there’s at 17.64% chance that if you google country music superstar Luke Bryan (he’s #2 on the list) you’ll end up on a webpage that poses a threat to your computer, your privacy, and/or may be passing malware to your computer.

You want to be VERY CAREFUL when Googling the names on McAfee’s list of the ‘top 10 most dangerous cyber celebrities of 2015’, and only click on trusted sources (really you should only be clicking BroBible links). This list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of millennial attention, though shockingly there’s not a singly Kardashian or Jenner name in the top 10. You’d think that as crazy as that family is they’d have paid someone to make a ton of malware sites with their names just so they could be in the top 10 of another rankings, even if this is a list you REALLY don’t want to find your name on. Something to note is that 7 of the 10 celebrities on this list are musicians, ranging from EDM to pop to country music. So there may be a correlation between people looking for sites to download and/or stream music and those being the sites that carry spyware and post cyber threats.

The 10 Most Dangerous Celebrities To Google In 2015

1.) Armin van Buuren: 17.92% of websites searched posed a threat.

2.) Luke Bryan: 17.64% of websites searched posed a threat

3.) Usher: 16.67% of websites searched posed an online threat.

4.) Britney Spears: 16.39% of websites searched posed a threat.

5.) Jay Z: 15.83% of websites searched posed a threat.

6.) Katy Perry: 14.86% of websites searched posed a threat.

7.) Amy Schumer: 14.72% of websites searched posed a threat.

8.) Betty White: 14.03% of websites searched posed a threat.

9.) Lorde: 13.61% of websites searched posed a threat.

10.) Nina Dobrev: 13.19% of websites searched posed a threat.

I’m not really seeing any rhyme or reason to why these names are in the top 10 other than all of them made a ton of headlines in 2015 AND the people most interested in these celebrities are the kinds of people who might not be super discerning when it comes to the source of an article they are clicking on.

This was the 9th year that McAfee has released these rankings and they did so this morning in a blog post (read in full here). But before you click on over here’s a little bit of the methodology of the rankings, who the big movers this year were, and what to watch out for:

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Sept. 29, 2015 — Electronic Dance Music (EDM) DJ Armin van Buuren replaces comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel as Intel Security’s most dangerous celebrity to search for online. For the ninth year in a row, Intel Security researched popular culture’s most famous people to reveal which of them generates the most dangerous search results. The Intel Security Most Dangerous Celebrities™ study revealed that searches for certain musicians and comedians tend to expose Internet searchers to more possible viruses and malware.

Seven of the top ten represent a mix of EDM, country, hip hop and pop musical artists. Britney Spears remains in the top 10 – taking the No. 4 spot compared to her place last year as No. 7 on the list. Justin Bieber (No. 11), Rihanna (No. 12), Jennifer Lopez and Kenny Chesney (tied at No. 13), Selena Gomez (No. 14), Zendaya (No. 15), Kanye West (No. 16), Afrojack and Miley Cyrus (tied at No. 19), and Nick Jonas (No. 20) are a few beats behind the top 10 and round out the musicians included in the top 20.

Funny ladies Amy Schumer and Betty White both make the top 10 taking the No. 7 and No. 8 spots, respectively. Last year’s Most Dangerous Celebrity, Jimmy Kimmel, fell to No. 26 on this year’s list (tied with Melissa McCarthy). Other funny people to make the list include: Jimmy Fallon and Kristen Wiig (tied at No. 27), Tina Fey (No. 29), and Ellen DeGeneres (No. 31).

Be sure to follow that link above to read the full blog post over on McAfee!!!!

[McAfee]