STAYING ON THE DIGITAL SAFE SIDE...

Meltdown and Spectre are two words that we should prepare to hear more about over the coming weeks. Meltdown affects desktop computers, laptops and even the computers that power the internet, that have Intel chips. Spectre has an even wider reach as it can impact the chips in smartphones and tablets running on chips made by ARM, AMD and Intel. In total, there are billions of computers and phones that could be impacted. While there have been no reported data thefts yet, this threat is different and perhaps more serious than the usual virus or malware attacks. Computer chips pass your data around internal memory as they work and these hacks mean that potentially, passwords, personal data and credit card data entered online could be stolen. We believe the industry knew about these vulnerabilities last year but kept the story under wraps while the chip-makers worked on fixes. Both Apple and Microsoft are now releasing updates. To protect yourself, you should make sure automatic updates are turned on. To be extra sure, go to your device’s settings and look for new updates and install manually if need be. While there’s no need to panic, being digitally safe is preferable to being sorry.