By: Brian Prince
2009-05-27

Last year, Google detected one trillion unique URLs on the Web at once. The vehicle that gets users to those places is search, but within those trillion URLs are a lot of dark alleyways that are home to attackers.

According to McAfee, some of the riskiest searches on the Internet today are associated with finding items for free—such as music or screensavers—or looking for work that can be done from home. In its new report, The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms, McAfee researchers lay out how hackers use search engine optimization to lure victims into downloading malware. The riskiest word of them all: screensavers.

“Like sharks smelling blood in the water, hackers will create related Web sites laden with adware and malware whenever a particular topic increases in popularity,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Product Development and Avert Labs, in a statement. "Unsuspecting consumers are then tricked into downloading malicious software that leads them to blindly hand over their personal assets to cybercriminals.”

Continued @ eWeek