McAfee Released New Most Dangerous Keyword List
Posted by Jaan Kanellis
Every year McAfee releases a list of the most dangerous keyword queries you can try on the search engines. Meaning searching for something and then clicking on the result only to have malware installed onto your computer with or without you even knowing. Here is their report:
McAfee: Most Dangerous Search Terms US [Warning big ass PDF]
This is great report for just about everyone to review that uses search engines everyday. We all know SEO’s do this for sure. As I pointed out yesterday spammers & scammers of the world seem to be targeting those that have been suffering in this poor economy. Jason Lee Miller finds the same thing with McAfee’s report:
Sadly, cybercrooks also seem to be targeting those down on their luck; variations of “work from home” searches can be four times riskier than the average risk for all popular terms, says McAfee. Results containing the word “free” carry a 21.3 percent chance of encountering spyware, phishing, adware, viruses or other malware.But it may not be a matter of target markets. Instead, cybercriminals are probably just casting as wide a net as possible. McAfee made tools of trending sites like Google Zeitgeist and Yahoo Buzz to develop a list of search terms to test. In all 2,600 keywords were tested, but McAfee declined to say which search engines were used for the test.
The recession is surely fueling searches for means of earning extra income and saving money, just as lyrics searches were probably heightened by American Idol performances. Viagra, a popular spam keyword, did not turn out to be as risky as other terms, probably not because the Viagra-using population is less Web savvy, but more likely because there is a smaller demographic searching for information about it.
So what are some of the worst searches to get caught clicking on? Here are the Top 20 with the maximum risk associated with each query:
word unscrambler 50.0%
lyrics 50.0%
myspace 50.0%
free music downloads 42.9%
phelps, weber-gale, jones and lezak win 4×100m relay 40.0%
free music 36.4%
game cheats 36.4%
printable fill in puzzles 36.4%
free ringtones 33.3%
solitaire 33.3%
miniclip 33.3% 5
make money 33.3%
viva la vida (coldplay) lyrics 33.3%
touch my body lyrics 33.3%
love song lyrics 33.3%
lollipop lyrics 33.3%
my life (lil wayne) lyrics 33.3%
weather.com 33.3%
lowes 33.3%
the price is right 33.3%
OK those all make sense. So we can easily see why our sons and daughters of the world have been getting out computers infected, LOL. So if times are tough and you are searching the web for help, if your looking for lyrics or something for free, be careful before you click.
The engines have gotten much better at marking potential malware threats in the search engine results pages themselves so if you see a message that says “This Site May Harm Your Computer” dont click it.
About the Author: Jaan Kanellis, is owner and operator of an independent SEO consulting company, www.KBKMarketing.com. Jaan Kanellis distributes his articles through the newly created SEO blog, www.JaanKanellis.com. Feel free to visit these websites and contact him if interested in his consulting services.