Emma Watson is The Internet's Most (Digitally) 'Dangerous' Celebrity
by Sean Comer
If you ever want to know how it feels to be deemed the Internet's "most dangerous celebrity," dial up nobody but Emma Watson. The demure, lovely former "Harry Potter" star recently topped McAfee's 2012 rankings as the star whose name and alleged likeness is most often used to suck unsuspecting marks into virus and malware traps.
Simply put, querying "Emma Watson and nude pictures" or "Emma Watson and busted" presents a reported 1-in-8 chance that a link is more virus-laden than a Congo monkey. By playing on the world's obsession with celebrity schadenfreude, criminals can pull off anything from scoring a horny adult's passwords and personal information, to exploiting a hormonally flooded teenage boy's proclivities to access his parents' social security numbers and tax records, as The Los Angeles Times describes.
"It's really a brilliant scam - and it's so simple," McAfee online security expert Michael Siciliano. "Hackers set up the websites, they use ... search engine optimization to get the websites high up in search [rankings]. And once they get them high up in search, lace it with links and downloads that are infected.
"Currently, Emma Watson is one of those people that criminals have determined is a good target, based on the demographics of those who pay attention to her," he added.
As of 2011, that unfortunate reigning celeb was statuesque model Heidi Klum.
The ladies tend to dominate the list. In fact, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was the only man on the list, barely edging out Brad Pitt and CNN's Piers Morgan at #13. The Top-10, though? All girl-power.
"Total Recall" star Jessica Biel, "2 Fast 2 Furious" beauty Eva Mendes, Justin Bieber's main squeeze Selena Gomez, Oscar/Razzie-winning former Bond girl Halle Berry, "Transformers" alum Megan Fox, belly-dancing singer-songwriter beauty Shakira, "Bad Teacher" lead Cameron Diaz, actress/director Salma Hayek and Colombian "Modern Family" beauty Sofia Vergara filled out the nine places below Watson.