legitimate Web site

IOActive security researcher Dan Kaminsky offered his much-anticipated speech on the DNS vulnerability at the Black Hat conference on Wednesday. His message: Patching your systems is urgent because the risk of cache poisoning is great.

Kaminsky discovered the bug in early July. The attack code was released several weeks later by developers of the Metasploit hacking toolkit, headed by the infamous HD Moore.

Researchers have released software that exploits the recently leaked flaw in the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) software. That may mean IT admins are in for a long weekend of implementing and testing the patch.

IOActive researcher Dan Kaminsky discovered the bug earlier this month. The attack code was released Wednesday by developers of the Metasploit hacking toolkit, headed by the infamous HD Moore.

Consumers who use search engines, online social networks, browsers and the like face a gantlet of viruses and malicious software code, according to a cybersecurity report from Symantec, issued Tuesday as security experts gather here for the sprawling RSA Conference on tech security.

The repercussions go beyond the loss of personal data, security experts say. As more consumers are victimized, it could undercut their confidence in legitimate Web sites, says Billy Hoffman, manager of Hewlett-Packard Security Labs.