A core dump is a file containing a snapshot of a program’s memory and execution state, usually created when the program crashes. Developers use dumps to diagnose failures, but they may also contain sensitive data such as passwords, tokens, or other information held in memory.
In cyber security, unsafe handling of core dumps can expose secrets or create opportunities to influence how a system processes crash files. Attackers may exploit weak permissions, predictable file paths, or logging and crash-handling flaws to access or misuse them. In the reported navigation-unit context, core-dump behavior was described as one part of a possible attack chain; that mechanism is not independently confirmed. Defenses include restricting dump creation and access, storing dumps in protected locations, removing sensitive data where feasible, and securely deleting dumps when they are no longer needed.