If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? "Traditional" viruses are far more prevalent, sure... and you're right that it took a long time for anybody to find out about Spectre (or Meltdown for that matter), but now that it's known, I fully expect the bad guys to try to use it. They didn't know about it before, so they couldn't use it... but now they can, because they know about it. I also expect the bad guys to try to find other hardware vulnerabilities now, since they seem to be a popular thing these days. Have you ever thought about what else inside your computer may be affected by some as of yet unknown security vulnerability? Though not quite the same thing, I remember reading some months ago about some game or something that could potentially link up with your wireless router and use the radio to try to make a map of your house, so advertisers could use that data to target you with specific ads. It was here on TPU, in the news section I think... right around the time that big uproar about microtransactions in games was fresh. Though not the same thing as Spectre/Meltdown, I mention it to bring up the possibilities of what can be done. It would be pretty hard to surprise me with anything like that anymore.