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Baseball Fans Foul Out on Risky Screensaver Sites, McAfee SiteAdvisor Analysis Finds

Posted on: Friday, 7 July 2006, 09:00 CDT

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- McAfee, Inc. , the global leader in intrusion prevention and security risk management, predicts a surprising loser in next week's Major League Baseball's All-Star Game: the fan. That's because nearly one out of five baseball player screensavers comes bundled with adware, spyware or other unrelated and unwanted software. McAfee(R) SiteAdvisor(TM) software analyzed more than 12,000 search results for MLB player screensavers and desktop "wallpapers" to see which come with unwanted software. McAfee found that searching for Colorado Rockies' Josh Fogg, San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds and St Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols generate the most risky sites. The team with the riskiest overall player roster, meanwhile, is the New York Yankees.

McAfee SiteAdvisor, which has pioneered Web safety by testing and rating, on an ongoing basis, nearly every trafficked site on the Internet, searched Google for each of the Major League Baseball's 1,224 player names followed by the word 'screensaver.' The first page of these results was compared to SiteAdvisor's proprietary database of spyware and spam safety test results for more than 4.5 million of the Web's most popular sites.

More than 300 players' screensaver searches yielded more than 30% risky sites in search results. Further searching for many of the heaviest hitters yields a better-than-50% chance of landing on a risky site.

The top 5 risky site results are filled by the following players: Josh Fogg 75.0% Barry Bonds 60.0% Albert Pujols 60.0% Jason Isringhausen 60.0% Jaret Wright 58.3% Derek Jeter 58.3% Ben Broussard 54.6% Mark McLemore 53.9%

When it comes to teams with risky sites, the Boston Red Sox take their fight with the New York Yankees into cyberspace: The Yankees beat their longtime rivals only by a few tenths of a percentage point for this admittedly dubious honor.

The top 10 team rosters with the highest percentage of sites with adware, spyware and malicious downloads are:

New York Yankees 24.0% Boston Red Sox 23.2% Houston Astros 23.1% St. Louis Cardinals 22.7% Chicago White Sox 20.2% Milwaukee Brewers 19.2% Minnesota Twins 18.2% Toronto Blue Jays 18.2% Cleveland Indians 18.1% Washington Nationals 18.1%

The full report can be found at http://www.siteadvisor.com/surveys/baseball_july2006.html .

"Many of us in the information security industry know that screensavers are popular routes used by adware and spyware vendors to deliver their goods," said Chris Dixon, director of strategy for McAfee SiteAdvisor. "However, with Americans conducting more than 15 million searches for screensavers and desktop 'wallpapers' every month, unfortunately this information isn't getting through."

McAfee SiteAdvisor software, which is available as a free download at http://us.mcafee.com/ , clearly identifies potentially dangerous sites that have engaged in "social engineering" attacks such as spyware, adware, spam, browser attacks and online scams. The easy-to-use software summaries these findings with intuitive red, yellow and green icons that empower online users to decide what to browse and what to avoid.

About McAfee, Inc.

McAfee, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, California and the global leader in intrusion prevention and risk management, delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that secure systems and networks around the world. With its unmatched security expertise and commitment to innovation, McAfee empowers home users, businesses, the public sector, and service providers with the ability to block attacks, prevent disruptions, and continuously track and improve their security. http://www.mcafee.com/

NOTE: McAfee and SiteAdvisor are registered trademarks or trademarks of McAfee, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. McAfee Red in connection with security is distinctive of McAfee brand products. All other registered and unregistered trademarks herein are the sole property of their respective owners.

McAfee, Inc.

CONTACT: Shane Keats of McAfee, Inc., +1-617-357-4043, orshane_keats@mcafee.com; or Eric Goldman of GlobalFluency, +1-212-213-5400,ext. 202, or egoldman@globalfluency.com

Web site: http://www.mcafee.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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