Meltdown and Spectre: What they are and how they affect you

What are Meltdown and Spectre

Meltdown and Spectre; I am sure you might have heard or even got affected by this hardware vulnerability. They majorly affect Intel, AMD and ARM processors.
Modern systems made with any of these processors have a 70% chance of being affected by these hardware attack.
Meltdown and Spectre exploit critical vulnerabilities in modern processors. These hardware vulnerabilities allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. While programs are typically not permitted to read data from other programs, a malicious program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. This might include your passwords stored in a password manager or browser, your personal photos, emails, instant messages and even business-critical documents.
Meltdown and Spectre work on Personal Computers(Laptops, Desktops), Mobile phones, servers and Cloud IT infrastructures.

How to defend your IT Infrastructure against Meltdown and Spectre

While Spectre and Meltdown are serious, customers only need to apply and update patches from their system providers and follow the rules and policies for the patches.
Patches and updates can be downloaded and manually installed on your computer or automatically updated by the system providers.

Where can I find official infos/security advisories of involved/affected companies?

ARM: https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update
Intel: https://security-center.intel.com/advisories.aspx
AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution
Microsoft: https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/ADV180002
Android: https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2018-01-01
Google: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com.ng/2018/01/reading-privileged-memory-with-side.html
DELL: http://www.dell.com/support/article/ng/en/ngbsdt1/sln308587/microprocessor-side-channel-attacks--cve-2017-5715--cve-2017-5753--cve-2017-5754---impact-on-dell-products?lang=en
Hewlett Packard Enterprise: http://h22208.www2.hpe.com/eginfolib/securityalerts/SCAM/Side_Channel_Analysis_Method.html
HP: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05869091