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From left: Anna Kendrick, Lupita Nyong'o, and Jimmy Fallon.
- McAfee, a cybersecurity firm, has released its annual list of the "most dangerous celebrities," which ranks which celebrities produce online search results most likely to lead to malware and viruses.
- The No. 1 spot for 2019 belongs to actress Alexis Bledel, the star of "Gilmore Girls" and Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale."
- These are 2019's 10 most dangerous celebrities in the US who generate the riskiest search results.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Nearly two decades have passed since the infamous Anna Kournikova virus swept the internet, but the names of celebrities are still being used to trick internet users into giving away their information.
Cybersecurity firm McAfee recently released its annual list of most dangerous celebrities, based on online searches for actresses, singers, and other high-profile people whose names yield results leading users to viruses, malware, and websites that can access your personal information and data.
"[Consumers] are interacting with content across multiple devices and conducting potentially dangerous searches across the internet to find the latest information or gossip without fear of consequence," McAfee wrote about its study. "For cybercriminals, this creates a field day to lure unsuspecting consumers to malicious websites that may install malware or steal personal information and passwords."
To create its list, McAfee compiled terms associated with these celebrities that often produce malicious results, such as internet searches for nude pictures, illegal video streaming, and other pirated downloads. URLs and websites that appeared in search results were ranked on how risky they are as well. Additionally, the sheer popularity of these celebrities - and thus, how often people looked them up - was also taken into consideration.
These are the 10 most dangerous celebrities in the US in 2019, according to McAfee: