A quick overviewThe vulnerabilities were made public on January 3 by Jann Horn of Google Project Zero and independently by other teams and individuals. They are similar in the sense that they exploit flaws in CPU architecture dating back decades to extract user information both from local applications on a device or, in the case of Spectre, from websites through a web browser. This issue affects Intel processors released as early as the mid 90s, but is being mitigated through patches released by Intel and other manufacturers, who use the company’s chips in their products. The exploit can be leveraged through Javascript to steal data from browsers, and this feature makes it difficult to identify what form a hack can take. On Android, ensure your device is updated to the latest security patch issued by the device manufacturer.

Source: The Hindu January 15, 2018 12:45 UTC