Offload is the practice of moving a task from the general-purpose CPU to dedicated hardware or accelerator logic, such as a NIC, DPU, GPU, or cryptographic module. Common offloaded work includes packet processing, encryption, checksum calculation, storage I/O, and virtual switch functions. The goal is to improve performance and reduce CPU load, but the security trade-off is that more sensitive logic now runs in firmware or specialized device code.
In cyber security, offload matters because it creates a new trust boundary. A guest VM, network packet, or API request may be parsed by device-side code before the host ever sees it. If that code mishandles malformed input, attackers can target the offload layer instead of the main operating system. Defenders use offload for isolation, speed, and traffic inspection, but they must also patch device firmware, validate inputs, and limit tenant exposure. In practice, offload is both a hardening tool and a high-value attack surface.