Technology companies are scrambling to fix serious security flaws affecting computer processors built by Intel and other chipmakers and found in many of the world\u2019s personal computers and smartphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two hardware bugs discovered can be exploited to allow the memory content of a computer to be leaked. Such a leak could potentially expose stored passwords and other sensitive data, including personal photos, emails and instant messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Researchers at Google\u2019s Project Zero and academic institutions including the Graz University of Technology in Austria discovered the problem last year and disclosed it Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no evidence that bad actors have yet exploited the bugs, but companies from Microsoft to Mozilla said this week they have worked to patch up vulnerabilities to their operating systems and browsers to protect against one of the bugs. Researchers say the other is harder to fix and \u201cwill haunt us for quite some time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s a look at what\u2019s affected, what\u2019s being done about it and whether you should worry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intel Inside<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intel is at the center of the problem because it supplies the processors used in many of the world\u2019s PCs. Researchers say one of the bugs, called Meltdown, affects nearly every processor it\u2019s made since the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While security flaws are typically limited to a specific company or product, Intel says the problem is \u201cnot a bug or a flaw in Intel products\u201d but rather a broader problem affecting processing techniques common to modern computing platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both the chipmaker and Google, which informed Intel about the vulnerability in June, said they were planning to disclose the issue next week when fixes will be available. Tech companies typically withhold details about security problems until fixes are available so that hackers wouldn\u2019t have a roadmap to exploit the flaws. But in this case, Intel was forced to disclose the problem Wednesday after British technology site The Register reported it, causing Intel\u2019s stock to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the immediate fixes will be limited to the Meltdown bug. The other, Spectre, is harder to fix, but also harder to exploit, making it less of an immediate threat to consumer devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other chipmakers<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
While researchers say the Meltdown bug is limited to Intel processors, they have verified Spectre as a problem for Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and ARM processors. AMD chips are also common in PCs, while ARM chips are found in many smartphones and other internet-connected products, including cars and home appliances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AMD said there is \u201cnear zero risk\u201d to its own processors, either because its chips are designed differently, or security fixes for Microsoft Windows and other operating systems will take care of the problem. ARM Holdings said it\u2019s working with Intel, AMD and operating system vendors to address the problem. The ARM design is also used in Apple\u2019s mobile chips. Apple said late Thursday that all of its devices are affected, but it\u2019s already made fixes to help defend against Meltdown in laptops and phones and soon plans to release mitigations in the Safari browser to help defend against Spectre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Securing the cloud<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bugs also affect cloud-computing services powering much of the internet. These services, offered by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM and others, give smaller companies access to data centers, web hosting and other services they need to run their businesses. But these cloud services also use computers with the same types of problem chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unauthorized access will be difficult to detect so cloud-computing providers need to act quickly to protect against these vulnerabilities, said Ryan Kalember, senior vice president of cybersecurity at Proofpoint. The good news, he said, is that major cloud providers have known about this for months and have had time to tackle the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What to do next?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are limits to what consumers can do now to protect their computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Advice from the U.S Computer Emergency Readiness Team\u2019s was grim. The federal organization says that \u201cfully removing the vulnerability\u201d requires replacing the hardware already embedded in millions of computing devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s not to say nothing can be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consumers can mitigate the underlying vulnerability by making sure they patch up their operating systems with the latest software upgrades. There are already Meltdown patches for Microsoft\u2019s Windows, Apple\u2019s macOS and Linux. Mozilla says it\u2019s also implementing a short-term mitigation that disables some capabilities of its Firefox browser. Google says Android devices are protected if they have the latest security updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you download the latest update from Microsoft, Apple, or Linux, then the problem is fixed for you and you don\u2019t have to worry,\u201d security researcher Rob Graham said in a blog post Thursday. \u201cIf you aren\u2019t up to date, then there\u2019s a lot of other nasties out there you should probably also be worrying about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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