Katie Price fans most likely targets of cybercrooks

KATIE PRICE was named Britain’s “most dangerous celebrity in cyberspace” by internet researchers yesterday.

Fans scouring the web for the latest gossip on Price’s relationship with cage fighter Alex Reid have a one in six chance of clicking on a “risky” website, a survey found.

Such sites could be loaded with spyware collecting information about users without their knowledge, and viruses that can infiltrate computers, with the goal of making money and committing ID theft.

Jude Law, who was last month revealed to be fathering a child with actress and model Samantha Burke, had the second highest percentage of related websites targeted by cybercrooks.

Law’s ex-wife Sadie Frost was in 13th place.

Price’s estranged husband Peter Andre came in joint 14th position with Prince Harry, with online users facing a one in 20 chance (6.2%) of clicking on something potentially harmful.

Computer protection company McAfee looked at search engines such as Google and Yahoo! in assessing the risk by clicking on celebrity-related website links.

It found 16.3% of Price-related websites had some sort of risky content attached.

McAfee’s principal security analyst Greg Day said: “Cybercrooks capitalising on the public obsession with celebrities and current events is nothing new...

“A quick flick across the front pages of the latest popular newspapers and magazines offers a fairly reliable snapshot of where the criminals will focus their efforts next.”

Jessica Biel was found to be the riskiest US celebrity target, with 20.1% of celebrity websites related to her being potentially harmful.

Internet users can download a traffic light system called McAfee SiteAdvisor which flags up what is safe and what is not for free at www.siteadvisor.com.