If you find yourself searching for websites about Brad Pitt, take extra care. He’s top of the list for hackers trying to distribute malware through bogus celebrity sites.

According to a second annual survey by security firm McAfee, 18% of sites which appear when you search for ‘Brad Pitt’ and related terms (such as screensavers or images) contain some form of malicious coding.

Beyonce is second on the list, followed by Justin Timberlake, with Heidi Montag and Jessica Alba rounding out the top five. Last year’s number one, Paris Hilton, has dropped out of the top 15 completely, suggesting she’s either lost her appeal or her fanbase has become so security conscious it’s not worth using her name. You be the judge.

Pitt’s partner Angelina Jolie only made number 11 in the list, but was the subject of a download site where a staggering 978 photo and wallpaper images came with bonus malware.

McAfee carried out the survey to promote its SiteAdvisor system, which ranks websites for safety and security. The system is built-in to Yahoo’s search facility.

Judging by a previous McAfee survey, which looked at websites from different countries, the quickest way to infect your PC is to search for Brad Pitt pages on the Hong Kong (.hk) domain. Nineteen per cent of sites with a .hk address were infected, though the results suggests that Pitt site’s are dodgier than any other country.

Perhaps the strangest comment in coverage of the celebrity survey comes from Reuters, which says “Celebrity searches can also be used for phishing, an attempt to get sensitive information by masquerading as an entity that is known to be reputable.”

While you can see how some people would be fooled by criminals posing as PayPal or eBay, we at Blorge have yet to hear reports of web users handing over their bank account details to somebody claiming to be Brad Pitt.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 11:30 am under Internet, Malware, Security.

Read more entries by John Lister.
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