Today I was watching a video on 'Ethical Hacking' where, while discussing hardware attacks, the narrator said:


  Removing RAM or components from a desktop or a laptop


Here's a screenshot:


I understand that removing stuff like storage drives is a security risk but removing RAM? The maximum it can do is slow down the system, but how else is that a security risk?

RAM is used to store sensitive non-persistent information in a lot of cases. Encryption keys would be a common example. 

Sometimes it is possible to remove RAM and place it into another device to dump the contents - often with the aid of liquid nitrogen. 

For more information, see the Wikipedia article for Cold Boot Attack.
