Exclusive! Orry On Leading The "Riskiest Celebs Online" List: "Unexpected Honor..."

Global online protection company McAfee unveiled its annual ‘Celebrity Hacker Hot List 2024', identifying Indian celebrities whose names generate the “riskiest” online results. This year's results show that the more popular or viral a celebrity is, the more appealing their name is to cybercriminals looking to exploit their fame to create malicious sites and scams. These scams often lead to significant data breaches, financial losses, and personal information theft.

Orry Tops the List:

Topping the list for India is Orhan Awatramani, also known as Orry. His sudden rise in popularity, association with other high-profile celebrities, and surge in content have made his name an appealing one for cybercriminals to exploit. This highlights how cybercriminals take advantage of the flood of unverified information about new or upcoming public figures to lure consumers searching for updates. Following him on the list is singer and actor Diljit Dosanjh, who's upcoming 'Dil-Luminati' concert tour has been plagued with concerns about ticketing scams. Large-scale events like these are often exploited due to overwhelming fan interest and a surge in search volume, leading to fraudulent ticketing sites, discount or re-sale schemes, and phishing scams.

Here's What Orry Said:

We have exclusively connected with Orry to know his reaction. He said, "This is obviously a complete unexpected honor. I am outrageously grateful and in admiration of myself fun to even be in the headlines amongst Diljit who's having back-to-back sold-out shows and with Alia who's the biggest actor of the, I don't know what."

Photo Credit: Orry Instagram

He added, "But imagine their names obviously you would know them as clickbait names but what an absolute honor that my name is so easily clickable and usable to trick people that to me this is only an absolute complete honor I can't think of a bigger honor, I mean I'm at a loss for words I'm shocked."

The rise of generative AI and deepfakes has further complicated the cybersecurity landscape, with many celebrities becoming victims of misinformation. Leading actress Alia Bhatt has been subjected to multiple deepfake incidents, while actors Ranveer Singh and Aamir Khan have been falsely depicted endorsing political parties through election-related deepfakes. Personalities like Virat Kohli and Shahrukh Khan have also appeared in deepfake content promoting betting apps. Scammers capitalize on fans' curiosity using tactics like malicious URLs, deceptive messages, and AI-driven image-audio-video scams resulting in financial losses and damaging the reputation of and consumer trust in impacted celebrities.  

Top Ten on India's McAfee Hacker Celebrity Hot List

The top ten list, which includes a combination of longtime talent and more recently well-known names, is as follows:

1. Orry (Orhan Awatramani)

2. Diljit Dosanjh  
3. Alia Bhatt  
4. Ranveer Singh  
5. Virat Kohli  
6. Sachin Tendulkar  
7. Shahrukh Khan  
8. Deepika Padukone  
9. Aamir Khan  
10. Mahendra Singh Dhoni  

Earlier this year, a McAfee survey revealed that 80% of Indians are now more concerned about deepfakes than a year ago, with 64% stating that AI has made it more difficult to spot online scams.   75% of Indians reported to have seen deepfake content, 38% have encountered a deepfake scam and 18% have been a victim of a deepfake scam. Among those affected by deepfake scams, 57% mistook a celebrity video, image, or recording for authentic, with 31% suffered financial loss as a result. Of those who fell prey to a voice cloning or other deepfake/AI scams, 64% lost money, with 43% losing more than ₹40,000 and 10% losing more than ₹800,000.