Hackers Using Celebrity Names to Circulate Malware

Security vendor PandaLabs released the ranking of celebrity names most commonly used during 2008 by hackers in malicious e-mails (malware infected mails and spam). The survey reveals that Hollywood stars were very popular among the hackers during 2008.

Especially, Brad Pitt (12.57%) and Tom Cruise (12.14%) acquired the first two positions in the ranking and represented around a quarter of all harmful mails associated with popular personalities. Ironically, both of them have jointly grabbed the malware Oscars award for 2009.

Apart from male actors, female actors also marked their entry in the chart. This includes Britney Spears (12.01%), Angelina Jolie (11.62%) and Lindsay Lohan (10.15%) placed at 3rd, 4th and 5th positions respectively in the chart of celebrates facing maximum spam and malware.

Some other celebrities who were included in the chart were American Idol (9.79%), Jessica Alba (9.52%), Oprah Winfrey (8.08%) and Paris Hilton (6.64%).

Technical Director of PandaLabs, Luis Corrons, says that hackers keep a record of the celebrities' names that users most frequently search for on the web or those that are often displayed on social networking sites or forums. He also informs that hackers then use those names for circulating spam. Thus, in this way, they lure users into opening the mails and following links, as reported by PANDA SECUIRTY on February 10, 2009.

Further, it is not only PandaLabs which has provided a list of the most spam marred celebrities, McAfee has also come up with a similar list.

McAfee's results show that 'Frost Nixon' is the most harmful to search (as it is related to dangerous links), Brad Pitt is the most dangerous male actor and Kate Winslet is the most dangerous female actor. In addition, McAfee also tells that search for Kate Winslet can prove malicious and gives a 20% possibility of accessing a harmful site and having the systems compromised by spyware, viruses, malware, phishing, adware and other malware.

The company also informs that hackers are employing nominees of Oscar and their pictures to attract web users to inauthentic sites that appear authentic. This has led to an increase in malware marred authentic sites.

Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 3/2/2009