Thursday, June 15, 2006

World Cup Of Spyware

Angola may have a better chance of beating Brazil in the World Cup than the bookies first thought, if research from McAfee SiteAdvisor is correct.

An analysis of screensaver pages associated with World Cup teams and players found that pages linked with Angola contained the highest percentage of risky websites.

The study searched Google for each of the 736 World Cup players, adding the phrase 'World Cup Screensaver' to the search.

The results were then cross-checked with SiteAdvisor's database of spyware and spam and the 'winners' were searches that resulted in the highest percentage of risky sites.

Angola beat Brazil 24 per cent to 17 per cent, followed by Portugal, Argentina and the US.

The report also found that the most dangerous player to search for is Luis Mamona Joao 'Lama' from Angola, with 45 per cent of first page results leading to questionable sites.

Fans searching for Beckham and Ronaldinho face a 30 per cent chance of ending up at a risky website.

"Soccer fans are famous for the depth of their feelings for player, club and country. But sadly the vendors of spyware, adware and other unwanted software know how to exploit this passion for financial gain," said Chris Dixon, director of strategy at McAfee SiteAdvisor.

McAfee