Avril Lavigne rated ‘most dangerous celebrity’ online (cnn.com, link and quote updated 2nd Oct. 2018 due to link rot).
The singer-songwriter topped McAfee’s Most Dangerous Celebrities study this year.
The report “reveals which celebrities generate the riskiest search results that could potentially expose their fans to malicious websites.”
With “the search for Lavigne’s music has contributed to her threat level” in the form of MP3’s “results in a 22% chance of encountering a malicious site” but I’m sure fakes ’n’ Fappening interest contributed as much and replacing Amy Schumer, who was named the most dangerous celebrity to search for last year.
“Bruno Mars was second in his debut on the list, followed closely behind by Carly Rae Jepsen. Zayn Malik (No. 4), Celine Dion (No. 5), Calvin Harris (No. 6), Justin Bieber (No. 7), Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (No. 8), Katy Perry (No. 9) and Beyonce (No. 10) rounded out the top 10 list. … McAfee had a few suggestions for why Lavigne scored so high on the 11th annual list: Interest after the artist said she’s working on a new album, a feature story on her by E! Online and an [old but ever alive] internet conspiracy that she has been replaced by an impostor.”
But, if the site has not been hijacked via a lax updated WordPress or similar CMS exploit, the elephant in the room tiptoed around—especially by site owners keen to profit—is likely that most of the malware found when looking for Avril Lavigne .MP3s is likely not resident on the site itself, rather giving browser drive-by download (Wikipedia) via ads generating revenue: MSN home page spreads malware via malicious ad (grahamcluley.com, Jan. 2016).
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