[rkrzr]

It allows the attacker to steal data like e.g. your (root) password.

[tremon]

Only while it's stored unencrypted in memory, right?

[taneliv]

My reading of the article was that memory is not directly compromised, but CPU registers. So loaded unencrypted in one of the affected registers.

[saagarjha]

As is the case whenever you type it in, yes