Researchers from Google and other security firms have discovered two vulnerabilities affecting almost all today computers according to the publications done by the Reuters agency.

Meltdown is a design flaw that affects laptops, desktop computers and Intel Internet chip servers and can allow hackers to steal important data like passwords saved in web browsers. The three major operating system makers (Microsoft, Apple and Linux) all say that they will apply updates, but Apple and Microsoft did not say exactly when.

Specter affects chips from tablets and smart phones, but also computer chips produced by Intel and AMD. Hackers can take advantage of this vulnerability to fool applications to provide important information. While it is a little bit less dangerous than Meltdown, it is more difficult to fix.

What are the next steps?

• Device owners need to verify that their manufacturer or operating system provider applies updates and installs them as quickly as possible.
• Google says Android phones with the latest security updates are safe and that web service users like Gmail are protected. Those with older versions of Chromebooks will need to install an update whose date has not been announced yet. Chrome users will get a patch on January 23rd.
• Experts say they're working on an update for Apple's laptops and desktops, but it's not clear whether iPads and iPads are at risk
• The main cloud services for business customers - including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure - say they have solved most problems and will repair the rest soon

We all have important information stored on today’s devices, regardless if those are desktop computers, laptops tables or smart phones. We need to keep up the updates and apply patches as provided by the vendor in order to avoid any hack. One counter effected of the fixes might translate in performance decrease as some would say to expect between 5-30% slowness. But, when it comes to security and protect what is ours, there is not space to jiggle.