When Matt Sheffield passed along word via Twitter that “Jessica Biel is the most dangerous celebrity on the Web,” I was naturally intrigued. His link took me to this AP report in the Washington Examiner:
Security technology company McAfee Inc. on Tuesday reported that searches for the 27-year-old actress are more likely to lead to online threats such as spyware and viruses than searches for any other celebrity. McAfee said fans searching for the actress have a one-in-five chance of ending up at a Web site designed to damage one’s computer. Its the third annual report on the subject from McAfee, which last year found that Brad Pitt was the “most dangerous” celeb online.
“Cybercriminals are star watchers, too,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee’s product development. “They latch onto popular celebrities to encourage the download of malicious software in disguise.”
Following Biel in the report, in order, were Beyonce, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Brady and Jessica Simpson. McAfee noted President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are curiously safe searches, ranking no. 34 and no. 39, respectively.
I nonetheless took the huge risk to locate the image that adorns this post as a service to you, dear readers.
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Tabloid Prodigy linked with Freaks N’ Links
Drivers on a major road in Austin, Texas, got a surprise — electronic traffic signs bearing warnings including, “Zombies ahead! Run for your lives!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”
How did the messages get there?
Pranksters cut the padlocks on the computers for several signs throughout the city, and programmed the zombie messages. The hackers also changed the computer passwords, making it difficult for city officials to reprogram the signs.
The officials weren’t laughing.
“This is really serious, and it is a crime,” a city spokeswoman said.
And that, my friend, is the funniest story I’ve read all week.
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Usually walls are used to keep things out, you know, like the wind, or bugs, or barbarian invaders.
Ironic, then, that Facebook’s iconic Wall, the thing that helped to set it apart from MySpace and grab a huge share of the online social networking space, is actually being used by some to spread malicious software capable of turning your machine into a zombie, so that others with bad intents can control it and make it do their bidding online.
The “attack” is actually rather unsophisticated — just a link posted to the wall to a site that supposedly has a video of, what else, a celebrity caught in a private moment doing naughty things with a special someone. Naturally the site doesn’t have any such video, just a fake version of the Flash plugin that is actually the malware itself. You’re prompted to install it to view the video and, once installed, your machine is theirs for the taking.
So, as always, be careful where you click, keep your virus scanner up to date, and only install plug-ins like that from official sources, like Adobe.com.
source: [PC World]
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