Computer virus company McAfee has assembled a list of the top search keywords that are most commonly linked to malware exposure. The winning phrases are: word unscrambler, lyrics, myspace, free music downloads, phelps, game cheats, printable fill-in puzzles, free ringtones and solitaire. In addition, the general categories that are considered riskiest are: screen savers, free games, work from home, Olympics, videos, celebrities, music and news.

So, how do you protect yourself from malware?

Here’s a list of 5 things you should never do.

IE8 has been shown in at least one study (funded by Microsoft) to be the most effective at intercepting social-engineering phishing sites—those kind that try to trick you into entering sensitive data—but the malware described above is usually triggered invisibly with no interaction required by the visitor, other than just going to the page to begin with.

Here’s a new report from Google covering the top 10 malware source sites from the past two months. They suggest you use a browser like Firefox or Chrome that relies on their own Safe Browsing API.

And here’s a great post from Lifehacker on software you can use to remove malware from your computer.

“What are the most dangerous search terms on the Internet?” [CNN]

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