Row hammer

![Rapid row activations (purple row) may change the values of bits stored in victim rows (yellow rows).[11]:2](/uploads/202501/17/Row_hammer.svg2119.png)
Row hammer (also written as rowhammer) is an unintended side effect in dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) that causes memory cells to leak their charges and interact electrically between themselves, possibly altering the contents of nearby memory rows that were not addressed in the original memory access. This circumvention of the isolation between DRAM memory cells results from the high cell density in modern DRAM, and can be triggered by specially crafted memory access patterns that rapidly activate the same memory rows numerous times.