Apple has warned customers that all of its iPhones, iPads and Macs are vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre security flaws which could leave them vulnerable to hackers.
Reports of the two major security flaws surfaced yesterday when experts discovered that hackers could access sensitive data such as passwords that are stored in quarantined sections of a computer’s memory.
The Cupertino-based company has urged customers to only download software from known sources, reports The Guardian. The firm has released updates for its portable iOS devices to improve security.
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The bugs will have come as a surprise to customers. Many Mac and iOS users believe that their devices and operating systems are “less vulnerable to security issues” compared to other brands such as Android or Microsoft, says BBC News.
In fact, the Meltdown and Spectre bugs affect all modern computers with processors manufactured by the tech giants Intel and ARM, the news site says, which supply “almost the entire global computer market.
Following the news of the security loopholes, Intel says it is “rapidly issuing updates” for both customer computers and servers in order to rectify the flaws. It hopes to issue security updates for 90% of its processors “by the end of next week”.
The company says computer users should activate automatic update options on their devices to ensure they receive the software fixes as quickly as possible.
Meltdown and Spectre: two big online security flaws revealed
4 January
Tech companies are rushing to fix two security flaws that could leave a massive number of computers and smartphones vulnerable to hackers.
Security researchers have found two flaws, named Meltdown and Spectre, which could allow hackers to read sensitive data such as passwords or security tokens which are usually stored in quarantined sections of memory.
The vulnerabilities were initially thought to affect only chips made by Intel, which supplies processors to “about 80 per cent of desktop computers and 90 per cent of laptops worldwide”, the BBC says.
However, chip manufacturers AMD and ARM have confirmed that their chips are also susceptible to the Spectre bug.
The Register, which first reported the bugs, says programmers are working to overhaul both the Linux and Windows operating systems.
“Crucially, these updates to both Linux and Windows will incur a performance hit on Intel products,” the Register says, adding that the chips could be slowed by as much as 30%.
