Why your computers and smartphones are about to become a lot slower

Desktop computers, laptops and smartphones are about to get a lot slower after two major security flaws were uncovered in crucial processing chips.

Security researchers on Wednesday disclosed a set of security flaws they said could let hackers steal sensitive information from nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and ARM Holdings.

One of the flaws is called “Meltdown” and has been described as “probably one of the worst" central processing unit bugs ever discovered. The other bug has been named “Spectre”.

If Meltdown makes you think of what happens to failing nuclear reactors and Spectre draws allusions to the international criminal network from the James Bond movies, you’re not far off.

Meltdown is specific to Intel but Spectre affects laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and internet servers alike.

“Phones, PCs, everything are going to have some impact, but it’ll vary from product to product,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told CNBC following the disclosure.

Researchers with Google Project Zero, in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries, discovered two flaws.

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The first, Meltdown, affects Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer's memory, potentially letting hackers read a computer's memory and steal passwords.

The second, Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information.

The researchers said Apple and Microsoft had patches ready for users for desktop computers affected by Meltdown. Microsoft declined to comment and Apple did not immediately return requests for comment.

Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology who discovered Meltdown, called it "probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found" in an interview with Reuters.

Gruss said Meltdown was the more serious problem in the short term but could be decisively stopped with software patches.

Spectre, the broader bug that applies to nearly all computing devices, is harder for hackers to take advantage of but less easily patched and will be a bigger problem in the long term, he said.

“As it is not easy to fix, it will haunt us for quite some time”, the official release on the two flaws said.

The flaws were first reported by tech publication The Register, which added updates to fix the problems could causes Intel chips to operate 5 per cent to 30 per cent more slowly.

Intel denied that the patches would bog down computers based on Intel chips. Intel and ARM insisted that the issue was not a design flaw, but it will require users to download a patch and update their operating system to fix.

"Intel has begun providing software and firmware updates to mitigate these exploits," Intel said in a statement.

"Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time."

Speaking on CNBC, Intel's Brian Krzanich said Google researchers told Intel of the flaws "a while ago" and that Intel had been testing fixes that device makers who use its chips will push out next week.

- With Reuters