MS Dhoni, Tendulkar lead McAfee's list of most-dangerous celebrities

MS Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar have topped McAfee's 2019 list of Most Dangerous Celebrities for India, according to a study. The American Company has been doing yearly surveys to determine celebrities whose name and influence can be used by cybercriminals to hurt the general user. Let us take a look at how them

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The Most Dangerous Indian Celebrities 2019

1. MS Dhoni
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Gautam Gulati
4. Sunny Leone
5. Badshah
6. Radhika Apte
7. Shraddha Kapoor
8. Harmanpreet Kaur
9. PV Sindhu
10. Cristiano Ronaldo

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Why are these celebrities 'dangerous'?

As much as the title of this list may have you confused, the people in this list are not 'dangerous' per se. The idea behind this list is to expose the search terms that cybercriminals abuse to lure the general public into getting trapped. For example, someone who is interested in watching an MS Dhoni match or downloading a picture of the player may search for his name on the internet. Him ranking first on this list means that there are many websites on the internet who use his name to lure users and then propagate viruses, malware and malicious content. A file which may be named as "MS Dhoni match highlights" may actually be a virus that is waiting to be installed on your computer. 

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McAfee further commented that the rise of streaming services in India has led to users looking for free alternatives to access their favourite content. This, combined with the pop-cultural relevance of a figure can prove to be lethal for the end-user as they can very easily be vulnerable to malicious online content. Torrent sites which let users access pirated multimedia files are one of the leading reasons behind security invasions. McAfee also suggested that users stray away from suspicious-looking websites and always stay protected with a good Anti-virus software.

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