All-Star Game of Spyware

7 Jul, 2006 at 9:34pm ET Article published in Tech

In the same vein as the “free” game which comes with a string attached, spyware producers have been quick to take advantage of the unsuspecting fan who just wants to show his pride in his favorite team or player. Much like the World Cup Worm earlier this year, this sort of sleazy trick proves once again that one can’t be too careful when downloading “free” software – it may come at a high cost.

Barry Bonds, Derek Jeter, and Albert Pujols are household names for any baseball fanatic. They also lead the pack of the most hazardous players in McAfee SiteAdvisor’s survey of the most risky baseball screensaver searches. We tested each of Major League Baseball’s 1,224 players by passing their names through Google and adding the word ‘screensaver.’ We compared the results with our own database of over 4.5 million site ratings for Web safety.

TANSTAAFL!

Source: McAfee Site Advisor

Comments

8 Jul 2006 ~ 1:10am Leonardo

most risky baseball screensaver searches

Keyword is "screensaver." That's where I first learned about malware first hand, years ago, at a free screensaver site. Some things don't change.
10 Jul 2006 ~ 10:53am GHoosdum My favorite screensaver is "turn monitor off after 20 minutes" in the power options.
10 Jul 2006 ~ 11:38am profdlp

GHoosdum wrote:

My favorite screensaver is "turn monitor off after 20 minutes" in the power options.

Same here.
10 Jul 2006 ~ 12:25pm airbornflght

profdlp wrote:

Same here.

10 minutes for me:rolleyes2
10 Jul 2006 ~ 1:31pm profdlp

airbornflght wrote:

10 minutes for me:rolleyes2

ADHD?

J/K