Meltdown and Spectre

2018 did not start well for processor manufacturers. Two separate vulnerabilities (Meltdown and Spectre) were discovered that targeted the fundamental ways that Intel processors handle memory allocation. A threat actor can exploit these vulnerabilities to gain privileged access to the parts of memory used by programs, where they can then steal sensitive information like credentials or encryption keys. Microsoft, Google, and other major tech companies scrambled to implement protections in their products, which had the unfortunate side effect of slightly to moderately decreasing the efficiency of processors on Windows and Linux machines. Only time will tell how this will affect the processor industry in the future.