Provided by CommunityDNS, the information in this post consists of news items in the security-based Internet community.

Scareware package mimics Windows Blue Screen of Death

The latest variant of SystemSecurity, a Trojan delivered piece of malware, scares its targets by throwing a screen to the user that mimics Windows’ Blue Screen of Death. Following the BSoD is a smaller pop-up “Security Alert” screen giving the user the opportunity to fix the newly detected security problems on their PC. One of the latest schemes to get people to purchase fake anti-spyware software from Sunbelt Software.

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AES encryption not as tough as you think

While still a very strong algorithm, researchers have discovered AES 256-bit encryption is susceptible to related-key attacks. The findings bring the amount of time to guess a key into the realm of practicality. The related-key attack does not work on either AES-192 or AES-128, thus making AES-192 more hardened that AES-256.

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Twitter starts filtering links to malware sites

Appearing to utilize Google’s Safe Browsing API, Twitter is now filtering links to known malware sites. Twitter, a trusted social networking microblogging site has been targeted by hackers in the recent months. With Twitter’s use of URL shortening even the most tech savvy of users can’t tell if URL implanted tweets are URLs of good or malicious sites.

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Aussie net filtering goes into reverse

While plans continue moving forward for the implementation of Australia’s filter file, the following story illustrates that filtering is not bullet proof and that such filtering is an ongoing effort of adding and deleting of sites, especially for those that are miscategorized.

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Europe’s net refuseniks revealed

According to a recent EU report, 1/3 of Europeans have never used the Internet. 1/3rd of the population saw no need for a connection and 1/4th said they could not afford a connection. Latvia and Estonia lead the EU with web usage, especially in the area of uploading content to the Web. The report also yields in 2008 56% of Europeans have become regular users of the Internet, up from 42% in 2004.

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FCC chair touts broadband as top priority

Encouraging greater availability and adoption of broadband Internet access is the top strategic priority of the FCC. Citing inattentiveness on this issue from the last administration, the US is falling behind other countries with regards to broadband connectivity. With broadband being one of the country’s core infrastructures, 40% of US households do not currently have broadband connectivity.

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DPI vendor says 90% of ISP customers engage in traffic discrimination

Through the traffic shaping product of one Canadian company, 160 of its customers are ISPs located around the globe that provide 20% of the world’s wireline broadband users. Take into account other ISPs using competing traffic shaping products and it makes one wonder about the movement towards Net neutrality.

The information was pulled together at the request of the Canadian government who is working on potential laws that embrace the concept of Net neutrality. According to one thought, if the Canadian ISPs are no longer allowed to utilize the same tools other ISPs around the globe are using, including ISPs within the US, such laws would place Canadian ISPs at a disadvantage.

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