You’ve no doubt heard in the news about the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities. While they are not to be taken lightly, once all is said and done we don’t believe there is a lot to worry about. The bad news is that every CPU chip designed since 1995 has these vulnerable design flaws due to the inclusion of speculative processing (which means things go faster because it guesses what you want to do next with pretty good accuracy). The good news is that creating something to exploit these vulnerabilities is incredibly difficult because they operate at the lowest of levels, making it unlikely you will ever encounter anything that takes advantage of them.
The bad news is that every CPU chip designed since 1995 has these vulnerable design flaws.
The Meltdown vulnerabilities need software running on your computer or mobile device. In order for it to get there, someone needs to have hands-on access so simply keeping up with your security updates will keep you protected. Some of the vulnerabilities that are part of Spectre can run as javascript code from a website you visit, so it is very important that you keep all of your installed web browsers up to date. Safari updates come as macOS security updates in the App Store. Google Chrome and Firefox have their own built-in update functions in their About boxes, at Chrome menu > About Google Chrome and Firefox menu > About Firefox respectively.
If you are on our SafeGuard Maintenance plan we will be automatically taken care of these things for you. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please call us at 763-331-6227 or email us at support@themacguys.com.
