One of the biggest security flaws has been detected recently putting PCs, phones, and consoles in danger. The Specter and Meltdown security flaws affect the processor of your device and could let hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer’s memory. These flaws could reportedly affect your console too, especially your Nintendo Switch.
According to AMD and ARM, two of the biggest processor manufacturers, their chipsets are indeed affected by the Specter and Meltdown security flaws. Among others, the ARM Cortex-A57 the Nintendo Switch uses is directly affected by the Specter and Meltdown and could be vulnerable to attacks. This exploit affects the security of the device because it allows access to the most vulnerable elements of the system. However, depending on the operating system your device uses the hazards could be small or bigger.
There’s a possibility that the Specter and Meltdown security flaws will affect PlayStation 4 and Xbox One too since they use AMD CPU processors based on the Jaguar microarchitecture. Due to the limited use of consoles and the fact that they use custom hardware, there’s little chance that they are in major danger related to PC and mobile phones.
Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology who discovered Meltdown, called it “probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found” in an interview with Reuters. According to him “Meltdown was the more serious problem in the short term but could be decisively stopped with software patches. Specter, the broader bug that applies to nearly all computing devices, is harder for hackers to take advantage of but less easily patched and will be a bigger problem in the long term”.
If you want to know more, Intel, AMD, ARM and other companies in the technology sector will offer more detailed information about Meltdown and Specter security flaws next week. Then we’ll know about the possible bugs and problems they caused as well as the devices they affected.
