Never mind worrying about hackers stealing your password. A security researcher with the Finnish military has shown how they could steal your fingerprint, by taking advantage of an omission in Microsoft Corp.'s Fingerprint Reader, a PC authentication device that Microsoft has been shipping since September 2004.

The flash memory chips popular in consumer devices from iPod music players to memory cards for digital cameras and mobile phones saved the DRAM (dynamic RAM) industry from a major collapse last year, market researcher Gartner Dataquest said Monday.

Oracle Corp. and a security researcher are trading heated barbs over a vulnerability in the company's software that has gone unpatched since it was discovered in October.

Antivirus vendors are warning of a rapidly-spreading worm that is carrying a potentially destructive set of instructions. The Nyxem worm - also nicknamed the Kama Sutra worm - is programmed to overwrite all of the files on computers it infects on Feb. 3, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure Corp.

Users of the Windows OS should install an unofficial security patch now, without waiting for Microsoft Corp. to make its move, security researchers at The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) advised on Sunday.