McAfee says stay away from searching for “free”

In “Digital Music and Movies Report: The true cost of free entertainment” Paula Greve from McAfee warns users (PDF) to not search for “free” content as it may lead to harmful web sites.
There’s no doubt that the guys who create malware- the common umbrella term used for all kinds of scams and software intended to steal information and money from you, invade your computer or in other ways do harm- are staying one step ahead.

The McAfee reports says that consumers are increasingly turning to media online, such as movies and other video, music, TV and radio. As consumers change their online behavior and habits so do the malware producers. Basically, they follow consumers and take advantage of what we do when we go online.

Even though there are ways of buying all of this type content online from reputable and known web sites, the allure of “free” is too hard to resist for many of us. Again, the malware producers know this and take advantage of it.

Chances are that if you use a search engine to try to find the latest movie or TV show for free online that someone has created a web site with the sole purpose of luring you in and do something ill-intended toward you.

In April this year, according to McAfee, almost 20,000 web sites existed that distributed illegimate content. The risks you run by visiting such sites include pornography, malware, spam and more.

What may be even more worrying is that 7 percent of websites distributing illegimate content have associations with known cybercrime organizations.

McAfee says that adding words like “free”, “MP3″ and “fans” to a web search is set to increase the chances of you ending up on a bad web site. For example, adding “Free” increases the risk of the web sites you find three-fold.

To protect yourself from potential risk, McAfee says that you should avoid using “free” in web searches and go to legitimate sites you already know and trust. Then of course they add that it wouldn’t hurt to run some kind of security software like the ones they sell.

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