5 What are Spectre and Meltdown?
Put simply, Meltdown and Spectre are the names for two security vulnerabilities recently discovered within a vast range of computer hardware. Both exploits use similar core concepts by exploring the architecture built into basically all modern computing systems. It isn’t light reading, but secretary researchers have published two whitepapers on the exploits: available here, and here.
The two exploits are similar but separate. Meltdown is a vulnerability that, for the most part, only affects Intel processors — but is dangerous for users handling sensitive information unprotected systems.
Spectre, on the other hand, can affect basically any modern computer system. The latter vulnerability is both harder to exploit and harder to protect against, so it can be deployed via most web browsers.