How to stay protected from Meltdown and Spectre

By Gizbot Bureau

Published: Monday, January 15, 2018, 17:17 [IST]

Intel chipsets from the last ten years have been affected by kernel memory leak issue on all platform computers including Windows, Linux, and macOS. This flaw is named as Meltdown and Spectre.

How to stay protected from Meltdown and Spectre

These bugs allow programs to steal data that is being currently processed on the computer. Considering the fact that the programs are not allowed to read from other programs, any malicious software or program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to gain access to various personal information.

These bugs can work on desktops, smartphones and cloud data's. While the Meltdown allows the program to access the memory, the Spectre, on the other hand, tricks as an error-free program to leak sensitive information. Regarding this issue, the Meltdown attacks Intel-powered machines like PC or Mac, while the Spectre affects processors from AMD and ARM.

Companies like Microsoft and Google have already started sending out the patches to minimise the effects of these bugs. To protect your system, follow the below steps.

Microsoft users

Knowing the effects of these bugs, Microsoft has already released an update for Windows 10 and is planning to release the patches for Windows 7 and Windows 8. In case, if you are unable to install the automatic update, you might need to turn off your anti-virus software and use Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials.

Apple users

Even though Apple hasn't commented on the event, Alex Ionescu, Windows security expert, said that the fix was rolled out in 10.13.3 update to macOS.

Browsers

If you are using any of these browsers -- Google Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, you don't need to worry as they have updated to patch the security flaw. When it comes to Android smartphones, the system of those who run the latest version of the Android is safe as per Google.