Meltdown and Spectre: Dangerous CPU Bugs Found in Intel, AMD, and ARM Processors

Cloudmatika / March 24, 2026

Meltdown and Spectre have recently sent shockwaves through the modern tech world with their highly dangerous CPU bugs. Security researchers have uncovered two new exploits capable of targeting modern processors. Meltdown and Spectre use similar exploitation methods that target all devices using Intel, AMD, and ARM processors. These vulnerabilities affect nearly everything from PCs and mobile devices to cloud computing.

Meltdown and Spectre are two distinct attacks, but both allow attackers to bypass the isolation between applications to access information.

Meltdown

Meltdown is a security flaw in processors that compromises the isolation between the operating system and applications, allowing access to memory and all data stored within it. Researchers stated that they successfully tested Meltdown on Intel processors released in early 2011. “Currently, we have only verified Meltdown on Intel processors. It is currently unclear whether ARM and AMD processors are also affected by Meltdown,” said the researchers.

Meltdown was discovered by Jann Horn from Google Project Zero, Werner Haas and Thomas Prescher from Cyberus Technology, as well as Daniel Gruss, Moritz Lipp, Stefan Mangard, and Michael Schwarz from Graz University of Technology.

Spectre

Spectre is a security vulnerability in processors that can bypass the isolation between one application and another to trick normal applications into revealing sensitive data being processed there, such as passwords. Unlike Meltdown, which has only been verified to work on Intel processors, the Spectre bug appears to have a broader scope. According to researchers, nearly all types of devices are affected by Spectre, which has been verified to work on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors.