The Meltdown

The Meltdown was a computer security flaw discovered in early 2018 that affected many modern CPUs. It allowed malicious programs to access sensitive data, such as passwords or encryption keys, stored in a device’s memory, bypassing normal security protections. This vulnerability exploited a feature called speculative execution, which CPUs use to speed up performance. By carefully orchestrating this process, attackers could retrieve protected information from other applications or the operating system. Developers quickly released updates and patches to fix the issue, but the flaw highlighted the importance of ongoing security assessment in hardware and software design.