Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 05-01-2018

Apple has announced all that iPhones, iPads and Mac computers are affected by a pervasive flaw in chip design that has led to two vulnerabilities, dubbed Meltdown and Spectre.

Intel on Wednesday confirmed a report stating that its semiconductors contain a vulnerability based around a chip-processing technique called speculative execution. 

Intel says its chips, which power Macs and devices from other manufacturers, contain the flaw as well as processors based on ARM Holdings architecture, which is used in iOS devices and Android smartphones.

Apple says it plans to issue patches for Safari on macOS and iOS within days to better help devices defend against Spectre, which is more easily exploitable and affects devices using chips from Intel, AMD, and ARM.

The company has confirmed that Apple Watch devices are not affected by Meltdown in any way. 

“All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time. Since exploiting many of these issues requires a malicious app to be loaded on your Mac or iOS device, we recommend downloading software only from trusted sources such as the App Store.”

Intel says it expects to have issued updates for more than 90 percent of its processors introduced within the past five years, which will make computers “immune from both exploits.”

Twitter: @FaizelPatel143