The Public Interest Registry will add an extra layer of security known as DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) to the .org domain in June -- a move that will protect millions of non-profit organizations and their donors from hacking attacks known as cache poisoning. Read the full article. [Network World]

The news that Pennsylvania CISO Bob Maley lost his job for publicly discussing a security incident at last week's RSA Conference really shouldn't come as a surprise, but it does. Even for a government agency, this kind of lack of understanding of what actually matters is appalling and it is a glaring example of the sickness of secrecy that's infected far too much of the security community.

Pennsylvania's chief information security officer, Robert Maley, has been fired, apparently for talking publicly at the RSA security conference last week about a recent incident involving the Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system. Read the full article. [Computerworld]

WhitePages.com has stopped ad networks from delivering ads to its site after they were found to contain fake antivirus malware. Visitors to the Drudge Report, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other Web sites were found to be delivering ads containing malware last year. Read the full article. [CNet]

North Carolina state researchers have modified existing speech authentication computer models and have streamlined the process so that it operates more efficiently. Read the full article. [ScienceDaily]

Howard Schmidt, the new cybersecurity czar for the Obama administration, has a short answer for the drumbeat of rhetoric claiming the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing.

“There is no cyberwar,” Schmidt said. “I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept,” Schmidt said. “There are no winners in that environment.” Read the full article. [Wired]

Congress and other government agencies are under a cyber attack an average of 1.8 billion times a month, a number that has been growing exponentially since President Barack Obama took office. In 2008, security events caused by vectors including worms, Trojan horses and spybots averaged 8 million hits per month. That number skyrocketed to 1.6 billion in 2009 and climbed to 1.8 billion this year, according to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer. Read the full article. [Politico]

Microsoft's idea that the fight against malware could be funded by an Internet tax is "horrible," an analyst said as other experts weighed in on a recent comment by the company's security chief. Read the full article. [Computerworld]

More details follow the news of the Spanish botnet Mariposa and its owners being caught. The Mariposa Working Group infiltrated the command-and-control structure of Mariposa to monitor the communication channels that relayed information from compromised systems back to the hackers who run the botnet. Read the full article. [The Register]

Forget iris and fingerprint scans — scanning noses could be a quicker and easier way to verify a person’s identity, according to scientists at the University of Bath. With worries about illegal immigration and identity theft, authorities are increasingly looking to using an individual’s physical characteristics, known as biometrics, to confirm their identity. Read the full article. [Homeland Security Newswire]