Apple today said it has released mitigations to defend against Meltdown in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2. It will release mitigations in Safari to defend against the Spectre bug “in the coming days,” the release said.
“There are no known exploits impacting customers at this time,” Apple said, echoing what other companies and security researchers have said.
Apple Watch isn’t impacted by the Meltdown flaw.
Researchers announced the two flaws affecting virtually all computer processors on Wednesday.
Modern CPUs and SOCs are designed to perform something called “speculative execution” to enhance performance. Data is should be protected and isolated, but researchers discovered that in some cases, the information can be exposed while the processor queues it up.
Researchers said the vast majority of computers, smartphones, and servers are affected by the Spectre bug. Meltdown appears to be specific to Intel chips.
Apple users should make sure their macs. iPads, iPhones and other iOS devices, and all apps they use are kept up to date to protect themselves against hackers trying to use the flaws.
