Meltdown and Spectre

In the past couple of weeks researchers have revealed two vulnerabilities that affects just about everyone who owns a device made in the last 10-20 years. These exploits known as Meltdown and Spectre allows an attacker to read data on your system that they shouldn't be able to access.

Meltdown effects only Intel CPUS and some ARM chips, and is relatively easy to protect against. The fix for this exploit will unfortunately also slow down these CPUs by a decent amount. Spectre however applies to many different types of chips, including AMD CPUs.

So what can you do to protect your system? A fix will be released by operating system vendors to patch the vulnerability. Apple has already released fixes for iOS and macOS. Microsoft has released an update to Windows, however you will also need to update your antivirus.

In addition to updating your operating system, it's important that you also update your web browser. Both Firefox and Chrome have released updates to protect against Meltdown and Spectre.

You can read more about these exploits at https://meltdownattack.com/