CPU Security Flaw: All You Need To Know About Spectre And Meltdown

By Nathaniel Mott
published

A pair of bugs has silently infested CPUs from Intel, AMD, and ARM for years, and eradicating them has some potential downsides. We're referring of course to the Meltdown and Spectre bugs revealed earlier this week, which are present in modern processors. Microsoft, Apple, and other companies have updated their operating systems to address the problem—there is no way to fix the hardware itself—but doing so has introduced its own problems. People are most notably concerned about performance hits, and depending on who you ask, they could be severe or unnoticeable.

We've been covering the fallout from Meltdown and Spectre's revelation, and we're going to continue to keep an eye on the story as it develops. We have collected links to all of our stories below to help you find this coverage amidst all the other daily news.

Reference:

Understanding The Meltdown And Spectre Exploits: Intel, AMD, ARM, And NvidiaMicrosoft's 'Meltdown' Patch Has Little Impact On Storage Application PerformanceDo The Meltdown and Spectre Patches Affect PC Gaming Performance? 10 CPUs Tested

News:

Nathaniel Mott
Nathaniel Mott
Freelance News & Features Writer

Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.

36 Comments Comment from the forums
  • matthew_258
    afraid to hit the links... I do not want a virus :P:
    Reply
  • martin-barker
    I wish they would stop grouping them like that Trying to Protect Intells Reputation how much are Tom Hardware being paid by Intel to do this Meltdown is an Intel Major problem Spectre is an All CPU problem but not been Exploited yet.

    Stop grouping them to protect Intell they are different exploits and Intel's Meltdown is a Major Security Flaw in all there Chips.
    Reply
  • Myrmidonas
    20562452 said:
    afraid to hit the links... I do not want a virus :P:

    You shouldn't even be here reading this in the first place then.:p
    Reply
  • aidynphoenix
    I call BS current processors are so powerful that most consumers don't require anything faster than a dual core pentium. I am not denying the backdoor. But I think the backdoor was intentional. The fix of slowing down the processors to fix the issue benefits them from a sales perspective.

    Reply
  • samopa
    "Processors are so powerful that most consumers don't require anything faster than a dual core pentium."

    Says who ? I have 4 x 22 Core processor with 512 GB DDR4 RAM using 8 x 1.6 TB SSD NVMe, and I still need 3 days (3 x 24 hours) to run my one time TVAR analysis on Human Brain activity.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you don't need that computing power, don't say that everybody else don't need either.
    Reply
  • aidynphoenix
    20571182 said:
    "Processors are so powerful that most consumers don't require anything faster than a dual core pentium."

    Says who ? I have 4 x 22 Core processor with 512 GB DDR4 RAM using 8 x 1.6 TB SSD NVMe, and I still need 3 days (3 x 24 hours) to run my one time TVAR analysis on Human Brain activity.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you don't need that computing power, don't say that everybody else don't need either.

    like i said... "most consumers"
    Reply
  • rgd1101
    MERGED QUESTIONQuestion from marksavio : "ASUS Motherboards Microcode Update for Speculative Execution and Indirect Branch Prediction Side Channel Analysis Method"
    20567223 said:
    ASUS is aware that the current Intel® microcode version might be subject to recently identified security vulnerabilities. We are diligently working to update ASUS motherboards that support 6th, 7th or 8th Generation Intel Core™ processors or Intel Core X-series processors for X99 and X299 platforms*.
    We recommend customers update their systems by downloading and applying the latest BIOS, as soon as the relevant revision becomes available. We encourage customers to review Intel’s Security Advisory for information, including appropriate identification and mitigation measures.

    For detailed information of the security issues, please visit the Intel Security Center.

    Reply
  • wcrockett
    MERGED QUESTIONQuestion from wcrockett : "Meltdown Security, AMD Upgrade"
    A good friend of mine does highly confidential work, and is very concerned about Meltdown, because of her computers have Intel CPU's. Is the danger of using an Intel processor worth switching to AMD?
    Reply
  • wcrockett
    MERGED QUESTIONQuestion from wcrockett : "Meltdown Security, AMD Upgrade"
    20572812 said:
    A good friend of mine does highly confidential work, and is very concerned about Meltdown, because of her computers have Intel CPU's. Is the danger of using an Intel processor worth switching to AMD?

    20572835 said:
    It effects both Intel and AMD so it won't make any difference.

    Windows update already has a path and Bios updates will be coming.

    20572835 said:
    It effects both Intel and AMD so it won't make any difference.

    Windows update already has a path and Bios updates will be coming.

    Spectre affects both, but meltdown doesn't affect AMD. The patches are also only band-aids, not true fixes.
    Reply
  • rgd1101
    don't start a new thread.
    Reply