Model and TV personality Kelly Brook has the dubious honor of being named the UK’s most dangerous celebrity on the internet this year, with top spot globally going to DJ Armin van Buuren, according to Intel Security.
The security giant uses its McAfee WebAdvisor tool every year to see which celebs generate the most risky sites through a simple web search.
Sometime actor Kelly Brook replaced X-Factor judge, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, who surprisingly fell down to 18th.
Her co-X Factor judges Nick Grimshaw and Rita Ora came in third and fourth respectively, with the ever-popular Katie Price taking second spot.
Aside from the ubiquitous talent show, searches for free music and films also generated a large volume of malicious or potentially dodgy URLs, according to Intel Security.
When it comes to the global chart of Most Dangerous Celebrities, the security giant ranked Dutch trance DJ van Buuren number one – claiming last year’s number two-placed celeb now represents a 1 in 5 chance to users of visiting a malicious site.
Musicians comprised the biggest group of celebrities in the global top 10, occupying seven places. These included country music star Luke Bryan (2nd), Usher (3rd), Britney Spears (4th), Jay Z (5th) and Katy Perry (6th).
Cyber-criminals are past masters at taking advantage of public interest in celebrities and breaking news events to hijack search results with malicious web pages.
Intel therefore warned users to always access content direct from official providers’ websites, rather than follow third-party links. It added that netizens should stick to the news sites they know, and always use caution when searching for “downloads.”
Web security tools can also help minimize risk by flagging potentially dangerous sites before the user can visit them.
Users were advised never to enter log-in or other personal information if requested by a third-party site or by an unsolicited message, text or email.