It sounds like a six-word horror story, but 'Ransomware running directly from your CPU' is now a real thing

Ransomware is already a horrible blight on the tech world. These insidious programs are designed especially to hold your computer and its data hostage. Criminal hackers and the likes will then use this to extort money or further information from the victims. Of course security protections against things like ransomware are always being worked on, but that's because ransomware also continues to develop in more complex and terrifying ways.

Some of the latest developments in ransomware are all around microcode found on CPUs.