Apple has vowed to fix two major bugs which could leave iPads, iPhones and Mac computers vulnerable to being hacked.
The tech giant said it is working on software updates to fix a pair of vulnerabilities which affect Apple gadgets as well as ‘all modern processors and affect nearly all computing devices and operating systems’.
Security researchers revealed the existence of the flaws on Wednesday, which could allow crooks to hack most computers or devices made in the past decade.
In a statement on its website, Apple said all Mac and iOS devices were affected by both Meltdown and Spectre.
But the most recent operating system updates for Mac computers, Apple TVs, iPhones and iPads protect users against the Meltdown attack, which does not affect the Apple Watch.
Macs and iOS devices are vulnerable to Spectre attacks through code that can run in web browsers including Apple’s own Safari. The tech firm said it would issue a patch to its Safari web browser for those devices ‘in the coming days’.
Meltdown affects only Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer’s memory, potentially letting hackers read sensitive information or steal passwords.
The second, called Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information. It’s not thought that hackers have built viruses or malware which exploit the vulnerabilities.
Apple gave users this advice in a blog post: ‘These issues apply to all modern processors and affect nearly all computing devices and operating systems.
‘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.’
