Just on the eve of X-Point super dense memory; a breakthrough in memory architecture covered (see article here) – researchers have found a potentially massive exploit that uses dense memory to gain access.

This exploit is triggered by specially crafted memory access patterns that rapidly activate the same memory rows numerous times which circumvents the DRAM memory cells isolation – allowing for malicious and undesired outcomes like privilege escalation.

(Privilege escalation is the act of exploiting a bug, design flaw or configuration oversight in an operating system or software application to gain elevated access to resources that are normally protected from an application or user. The result is that an application with more privileges than intended by the application developer or system administrator can perform unauthorized actions.)

Currently the most effective way of protecting from this type of attach is to stable Javascript on your browser using a plug-in like NoScript, but this will make many webpages not function correctly as much of the web’s interactivity relies of javascript.