Dangerous Searched Keywords by McAfee
“screensavers” has been termed as the most dangerous keyword to search for using public search engines, with a maximum risk of 59.1 percent. Upon searching for 2,658 unique popular keywords and phrases across 413,368 unique URLs, McAfee’s research concludes that lyrics and anything that includes ‘free” has the highest risk percentage of exposing users to malware and fraudulent web sites.
One of the single riskiest search terms in the world is “lyrics,” with a maximum risk factor of one in two. Surprisingly, searches using the word Viagra, a popular keyword that is also common in spam e-mail messages, yielded the fewest risky sites. Searches with the safest risk profile included health-related terms and searches about the current economic crisis.
Consumers looking to save money, and/or searching for means of additional income, should take note: searchers clicking on results that contain the word “free” have a 21.3 percent chance of infecting their PCs with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware. “Work from home” searches can be as much as four times riskier than the average risk for all popular terms.
Search Term Maximum Risk
Free work from home 40.0%
Work from home for free 40.0%
Work from home free 40.0%
Work from home ideas 25.0%
Free work from home jobs 20.0%
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Refer to McAfee’s recently released report The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms.
-NKJ
