You might have noticed that things have been a bit quiet here since the start of the year. You may also have read that two security vulnerabilities have been discovered that affect virtually every computer in use today. These two things are not unrelated.
"Spectre" & "Meltdown", as they have been dubbed, might be two of the worst hardware flaws made public in recent memory. There's probably not a lot of point in trying to go in-depth here, but basically, for the last 30 years, processor manufacturers have been sacrificing security in order to out-compete each other on performance …
… and now, some clever dick has worked out a way to weaponise that negligence.
Because the flaws are so deeply rooted in the design of the hardware, the software fixes that have rolled out so far are themselves having some pretty drastic side-effects, especially on older machines. It's basically a case of "You can't fix this without breaking that."
This could be a bad one.
3 comments :
Yeah I've been wondering about whether to do an update or just cross my fingers, rely on my innate good sense and care online (I haven't had a serious virus infestation for many years) and hope for the best. My machine is at least six years old, which I've just realised is amazing for a laptop that I'm still happy with the performance of. (mind you it did have to have its motherboard replaced because of a fan failure three years ago, which meant a wipe and a clean install of Win7. Reckon I can get another three years out of it if I wipe the HDD and do another clean install)
One thing I know for sure is that I do not want Windows 8 or Windows 10 so I won't be buying a new machine soon unless I know I can roll it back.
My advice: Maintain up-to-date backups. MULTIPLE up-to-date backups.
If you do that, it really doesn't matter what happens to your computer.
I use Dropbox. But you are right, I really ought to bust out the TB drive and back up my music and photos again soon.
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