meltdown

Meltdown is a significant vulnerability, a flaw in software design or implementation, that was discovered in 2018. It exposed computer memory as an accessible target for hackers to inject malicious code and steal data, alongside its counterpart, Spectre. These vulnerabilities used side-channel attacks to leak sensitive data, including usernames and passwords. The vulnerabilities could have been resolved much earlier if chip manufacturers had taken reports from academic researchers more seriously, according to Daniel Gruss, a researcher at Graz University of Technology. The impact of Meltdown was felt across various industries and sectors. For instance, Singtel, Optus's parent company, experienced a 16-hour-long network outage due to a routine upgrade that indirectly contributed to a network meltdown. Similarly, the collapse of Three Arrows sparked a crypto meltdown, further highlighting the fragility of our digital infrastructure. Despite these incidents, companies have cooperated with the legal process to mitigate the effects and prevent future occurrences. Efforts have been made to protect against such vulnerabilities in the future. The Caliptra specification, for example, aims to fend off cyberattacks and safeguard from vulnerabilities like Meltdown and Spectre. However, previous speculative execution attacks have primarily focused on poisoning two specific components of the execution process. Researchers have demonstrated how attackers can extract sensitive information from cache memory via other microprocessor flaws, suggesting that similar vulnerabilities may continue to pose threats in the future.