A new research by antivirus software company McAfee has revealed the most dangerous Internet search words that may lead users to pages with malware. The company examined 2,600 popular keywords on the most popular search engines, including Google, AOL, Yahoo and Live and analyzed over 400,000 Web pages.

McAfee concluded that the most dangerous searches include ‘free’ things, like ‘free downloads’, ‘free music’, ‘free games’, ‘screensavers’ and ‘videos’. If you search for any of these terms, you are engaging in ‘risky cyber behavior’. Just by looking for free music downloads, 20% of Web surfers are risking visiting pages with spyware or viruses.

Malware infections have increased dramatically in the recent years, starting from occasional hacking to organized cybercrime and today’s cyber terrorism. You have to be really careful what you are looking for and what sites you visit.

The full list of dangerous key words that can lead to harmful sites include:

Screensavers, free games, work from home, Olympics, videos, music, news, word unscrambler, music lyrics, myspace, free music downloads, phelps, game cheats, printable fill-in puzzles, free ringtones and solitaire.

Cyber crime is a dangerous business and we have seen how much harm it can create, be it by a teenager playing a prank or by organized attacks which can bring down complete infrastructures. Even every-day Internet surfing can attract serious virus infections and damage your computer.

Even though antivirus companies lag behind latest developments by cyber criminals, attacks and infections on personal computers can be avoided by individual users. Just use a firewall, make sure your PC has antivirus and antispyware programs installed and malware database updated at all times, and of course, stay away from dangerous Web searches listed above.

If you are after a new antivirus program, you can review my top 10 list and find out more about recommended programs.

Source: CNN