Jay Leno and Madonna top online spam list

American comedian and TV host Jay Leno is the most dangerous Hollywood celebrity on the internet, according to online security company Bit Defender.

Analysis of 25 million spam messages showed that Leno topped a list of 'dangerous' celebrities that also included Madonna, Cameron Diaz and US President Barack Obama. For the full list, see the image below.

Click image to enlarge.

According to Bit Defender, the spam messages focussed around medicine and the purchasing of pills, but came with subject lines such as 'Jay Leno found taking drugs' or 'George Clooney's Girls'.

Bit Defender also said that celebrity names such as Justin Bieber and Angelina Jolie that used to feature prominently in spamming attacks were no longer being used.

Catalin Cosoi of Bit Defender said that the criminals look to exploit popular names to trick people into visiting dangerous websites:

"Cyber criminals follow the latest trends just as consumers do and they use these and the names of popular celebrities in their campaigns in order to lure people to websites that are full of malicious software (malware).

"As a result, users searching for the latest videos or pictures can instead end up with a host of problems on their computer. We advise all users to have a strong internet security solution in place in order to combat the wide variety of online threats."