Discovered by Google’s Project Zero team last June, the tech industry was due to provide a jointly coordinated response to the exploits on 9 January, but now the issue is out in the open. “The first, called Meltdown, affects Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer’s memory, potentially letting hackers read a computer’s memory and steal passwords. The second, called Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information.”

“Speaking on CNBC, Intel’s Krzanich said Google researchers told Intel of the flaws ‘a while ago’ and that Intel had been testing fixes that device makers who use its chips will push out next week,” Busvine and Nellis report. While the AMD processor running systems are supposedly fine, those running on Intel chips will need to gear themselves for some bad news: A security flaw discovered in the Intel chips that were made after 1995, requires an OS level update, which is expected to bring down the processor performance by 5 to 30 percent. Amazon said it was in the process of patching systems with all but a “small single-digit percentage” of its Amazon Web Services EC2 systems already protected, but that “customers must also patch their instance operating systems” to be fully protected.
Security researchers disclose two hardware vulnerabilities—Spectre, which affects most modern processors, and Meltdown, which affects most Intel chips.