In its third annual list of the most dangerous celebrities in cyberspace, McAfee has found that 20% of searches for “Jessica Biel,” “Jessica Biel downloads,” Jessica Biel photos” and the like lead to Web sites where malicious content has been detected.

Cybercriminals know that popular celebrities and popular news topics stir up interest among Internet users.  Cybercriminals capitalize on the interest generated and try to place malware at sites where visitors might seek that sort of information. When such sites prove secure, they will create their own sites with malicious content or post malicious content though a user content submission mechanism and then create spam messages and external Web links to drive search traffic to their trapped sites.

McAfee’s list of the top ten most dangerous celebrity searches includes:

01. Jessica Biel
02. Beyoncé
03. Jennifer Aniston
04. Tom Brady
05. Jessica Simpson
06. Gisele Bundchen
07. Miley Cyrus
08. Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie
09. Ashley Tisdale
10. Brad Pitt

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all make an effort to flag, block or remove malicious content from their search indexes, but cybercriminals typically can create new malicious sites at least as quickly as old malicious content can be removed.  (Full Article: http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219401447)

Even with the anti-spam/spyware efforts of the major search engines and ISP’s, it is very important to keep active and up to date anti-virus and spyware software, such as McAfee’s Antivirus Plus and Webroot’s Spy Sweeper.  In addition to software, internet users should keep their Operating Systems (OS) updated with the current security patches.

Easy to use password manager for sensitive data and password administration. Online banking, email accounts and the Windows logon credentials are only some examples for using passwords. Can you keep all passwords in your mind?

abylon KEYSAFE is a simple password manager that takes care of all your secret passwords.  Usually costs 14.95 but is Free for a limited time (21 hours and counting).

Abylon Password Manager

Printable Contracts features a number of contract agreements that you can download and use for some of your more simple transactions. They feature templates for contracts for personal and professional services, real estate and rental contracts, and more.

Printable Contracts