Citing a report by American cyber-security firm McAfee, an Indian media outlet reported on Wednesday that former Indian cricket team captain M.S Dhoni is the riskiest celebrity to search online in India.
Closely following Dhoni on the dangerous "online search" name-list is cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, TV celebrity Gautam Gulati, pornstar-turned-actress Sunny Leone, Indian rapper Badshah, actresses Radhika Apte and Shraddha Kapoor also made it to the list along with football sensation Cristiano Ronaldo at the 10th spot.
"As subscription-based content platforms continue to grow in India, netizens often look for free and pirated content such as major sports events, movies, TV shows, and images of their favourite superstars. Unfortunately, they may not be fully aware of the risks that malicious websites providing such content can pose in exchange for this access," the reports quoted McAfee India's Managing Director Venkat Krishnapur as saying.
Earlier in September, a report had predicted that moving briskly towards becoming the world's second-largest market after China for over-the-top (OTT) content streaming platforms, India's online video market will have more than 500 million online video subscribers by 2023.
McAfee's global report highlighted the importance of understanding the risks associated with pirated online content downloads and avoiding exploitation by cyber-criminals.
On the global scale, McAfee's reported named "Gilmore Girls" and American actress Alexis Bledel as the highest -risk celebrities on the Internet in 2019. Searches for those celebs were most likely to re-direct netizens to infected websites followed by searches for "Game Of Thrones" actress Sophie Turner Jonas and rappers Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj.
