Apple iPhone

Apple has admitted that a pair of security vulnerabilities in processors affect ‘nearly all’ iOS devices and Mac computers.

The issues – Spectre and Meltdown – are flaws in computer chips which could, in theory, allow hackers to steal data from affected systems.

There is no evidence that the flaws – which affect computer processors built by Intel and ARM – have so far been exploited by hackers, although companies including Microsoft have been working to provide urgent fixes.

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Apple has already pushed out ‘mitigations’ to help defend iOS devices and Macs against Meltdown, the company said.

The company has said that it will release a patch to protect its browser, Safari, against Spectre.

Meltdown and Spectre bugs: Apple admits that ALL Mac devices are affected by security flaw

The company warned users against downloading software from unknown sources in a press release.

Apple Watch users are not affected, the company has said.

Apple said, ‘These issues apply to all modern processors and affect nearly all computing devices and operating systems.

‘All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time. Since exploiting many of these issues requires a malicious app to be loaded on your Mac or iOS device, we recommend downloading software only from trusted sources such as the App Store.

‘Apple has already released mitigations in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2 to help defend against Meltdown. Apple Watch is not affected by Meltdown. In the coming days we plan to release mitigations in Safari to help defend against Spectre. We continue to develop and test further mitigations for these issues and will release them in upcoming updates of iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.’