SHARE

Dubious Honors: Top 25 Names in Spam Titles, 2009

McAfee Labs on Monday unveiled its rankings of the Top 25 men and women listed in the subject lines of spam e-mails in 2009 with President Obama coming in atop the less-than-desirable list. Spammers and phishers have and always will use celebrities and breaking news events to promulgate their annoying and increasingly destructive malware. President […]

Written By

Larry Barrett

Jan 12, 2010

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More

McAfee Labs on Monday unveiled its rankings of the Top 25 men and women listed in the subject lines of spam e-mails in 2009 with President Obama coming in atop the less-than-desirable list.

Spammers and phishers have and always will use celebrities and breaking news events to promulgate their annoying and increasingly destructive malware.

President Obama checked in as the most common spam subject last year, beating out the likes of Michael Jackson (No. 2 among men), former President George W. Bush (No. 3), actor Brad Pitt (No. 4) and musician Eminem (No. 5).

Rounding out McAfee’s (NYSE: MFE) Top 10 among men in spam subject lines were Warren Buffett (No. 6), Chuck Norris (No. 7), Don Juan (No. 8), Elton John (No. 9) and Sacha Baron Cohen (No. 10).

Others worth noting were Pope Benedict XVI (No. 11), Elvis Presley (No. 12), Mike Tyson (No. 16) and American Idol judge Simon Cowell barely made the cut at No. 25.

Among women in subject lines, spammers, fishers and would-be hackers thought Internet users would be most likely to click on a link with actress Angelina Jolie’s name attached to it. In fact, only President Obama was found in more subject lines than Mrs. Brad Pitt, according to McAfee’s January 2010 Spam Report.

“Bottom line, it looks like you have to be President to be a more popular spam target than Angelina,” the report’s authors said. “Sorry, guys.”

Oprah Winfrey checked in at No. 2 followed by Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Miley Cyrus.

Read the rest at ServerWatch.

Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA

FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
Top 10 AIOps Companies

FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
What is Text Analysis?

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
Top 10 Chatbot Platforms

FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
Finding a Career Path in AI

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science

FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020

FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality

FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020

SEE ALL
ARTICLES

Larry Barrett

Larry Barrett is a freelance journalist and blogger who has covered the information technology and business sectors for more than 15 years. Most recently, he served as the online news editor for 1105 Media's Office Technology Group and as the online managing editor for SourceMedia's Investment Advisory Group publications Financial Planning, On Wall Street, and Bank Investment Consultant. He was also a senior writer and editor at Ziff Davis Media's Baseline Magazine, winner of the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award, and ZDNet. In addition, he's served as a senior writer and editor at prominent technology and business websites including CNET, InternetNews.com, Multichannel News, and the San Jose Business Journal.

Dubious Honors: Top 25 Names in Spam Titles, 2009

Larry Barrett

Recommended for you...

Company

Categories

Dubious Honors: Top 25 Names in Spam Titles, 2009

RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Larry Barrett

Recommended for you...

Company

Categories