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Only Intel machines are affected by Meltdown Details have emerged on two major processor security flaws this week, and the industry is scrambling to issue fixes and secure machines for customers. Dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre,” the flaws affect nearly every device made in the past 20 years. The Meltdown flaw only affects Intel processors, and researchers have already released proof of concept code that could lead to attacks using Meltdown. The vulnerabilities allow an attacker to compromise the privileged memory of a processor by exploiting the way processes run in parallel. They also allow an attacker to use JavaScript code...

Microsoft has warned some PC users they will not be able to apply an emergency Windows patch because their security software is incompatible. The out-of-bounds update was issued by Microsoft yesterday to address the Meltdown and Spectre flaws in Intel chips. These vulnerabilities affect most PCs and servers, and can be exploited to allow an attacker to read sensitive information, such as passwords, from protected memory. The Spectre flaw also affects AMD chips, but is considerably more difficult to exploit, as well as a small number of Arm-based processors. However, not every Microsoft system will be able to apply the...

Like the Meltdown bug, the Spectre bug is a hardware bug in the form of a CPU design flaw. Unlike the Meltdown bug which only affects Intel processors, the Spectre bug impacts Intel, AMD, and some ARM (used in many smart phones and other mobile devices) processors. These three are by far the most common CPUs on the planet, running literally billions of devices. In a Spectre attack, the CPU is tricked into executing instructions that it normally would not, causing leaks in the victims memory address space.

If you’re confused by the avalanche of early reports, denials, and conflicting statements about the massive security issues announced today, don’t worry — you’re far from the only one. Here’s what you need to know about Meltdown and Spectre, the two huge bugs that affect practically every computer and device out there. What are these flaws? Short answer: Bugs at a fundamental level that allow critical information stored deep inside computer systems to be exposed. Security researchers released official documentation — complete with nicknames and logos —  of two major flaws found in nearly all modern central processing units, or...