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Bollywood’s reigning actress turned ‘Exotic’ singer, Priyanka Chopra has been named McAfee's Most Dangerous Celebrity in Indian cyberspace this year. Priyanka knocks Sunny Leone, who topped the list last year to take this year’s title.
Security solutions provider McAfee, researched popular culture’s most famous people to reveal riskiest celebrity sportsmen, actors and politicians across the web and unveil the 2013 rendition of ‘Most Dangerous Celebrity’ research.
The study highlights the trend of cybercriminals using celebs to take advantage of fans seeking more information about their idols. Cybercriminals often lure unsuspecting supporters to sites laden with malware that can steal passwords and personal information. These criminals capitalize on the public’s fascination with celebrity to lure them to sites laden with malware that enables them to steal passwords and personal information. This year, searching for a celebrity name coupled with the search terms ‘wall paper’, ‘videos’, ‘nude pictures’ resulted in the highest instances of malware-laden sites.
“In India where celebrities are given the status of demi gods, cybercriminals often use their names to lure people to sites that actually host malicious software designed to compromise personal details and disrupt devices. By including the names of popular celebrities in a website's search tags, cyber criminals are able to direct more visitors to malicious sites where they may unwittingly sign up for spam or harmful spyware ending up with a malware ridden devices,” said Venkatasubrahmanyam Krishnapur, Vice-President of Engineering- Consumer and Mobile, Business Group, McAfee India Centre.
Some of the top celebrities from this year’s Indian study with the highest percentages of risk in the Indian cyberspace are Shah rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan.
| Top ten dangerous celebrities: | |
| Celebrity | Infected sites |
| Priyanka Chopra | 79 |
| Shah Rukh Khan | 75 |
| Salman Khan | 68 |
| Kareena Kapoor | 63 |
| Akshay Kumar | 62 |
| Saif Ali Kahn | 55 |
| Amitabh Bachchan | 53 |
| Farhan Akhtar | 50 |
| Hrithik Roshan | 48 |
