Recently, many websites have been reporting two significant security threats on every CPU and handsets: Spectre and Meltdown! Find out more about them and their effects on your gadgets in our article today!
Spectre And Meltdown: what are they?
Previously, three Austrian researchers have discovered a 20-year-old chip flaw that can affect all gadgets globally while trying to break their most fundamental security protections. In details, this security threat is exploiting the primary features in your microprocessors (chipsets) that your computers, tablets or smartphones take power from. For now, the attacks come under the name “Meltdown” and “Spectre”. So how dangerous are Spectre and Meltdown?
Firstly, Meltdown can affect the Intel processors by breaking through the barriers which prevent apps from entering the centre memories. On the other hand, the Spectre is going to bring a worse consequence by affecting anything with a chip in it. Moreover, other hackers might use Spectre and Meltdown to exploit all of the data that your chipset has stored under other running programs. As a result, they might obtain various valuable information.
Apart from Intel, Apple has also published their response to this problem. In their statement, the American tech giant declared that Apple’s products are not immune to Meltdown and Spectre threat. However, they also assure that they have dealt with Meltdown. They said “Apple released mitigations for Meltdown in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2.” Furthermore, Apple is going to release an update for Safari on macOS and iOS in the upcoming days to mitigate these exploit techniques.
Spectre And Meltdown: what can we do to prevent them?
For now, the best practice for everyone is that you should keep your web browsers, apps and devices up-to-date. Moreover, other brands such as Apple, Google and Microsoft have also released some patches that decrease the bugs. We will keep you update once more information is released, stay tuned!