Andy Rubin’s Essential smartphone have come with the promise of faster update delivery and build releases, especially in case of monthly Android security patch release. Now, the company seems to fulfil their words by giving the timely updates to their users. Now, the Essential has started rolling out a crucial update for their users.
The significant part of the update brings the January Security Patch for Android Operating System. APart from the security fix, the company also announces that they are too pushing a fix for Spectre and Meltdown flaws which were recently found on CPUs. The Spectre and Meltdown are one of the most affected flaws found recently, and almost everyone is affected, in case you are unaware. These are not just either hardware or only an entirely software related problem. It is a problem with Kernel and CPU Architecture communication where data usually goes encrypted.
What are Spectre and Meltdown?
The Spectre and Meltdown issues which affected the CPUs across the world prevents the CPU from carrying data encrypted. The Spectre has affected many devices as it found Intel, AMD, ARM chipsets vulnerable. The security flaw accidentally lets the Applications to decrypt and expose the encrypted data kept in Memory locations (or even in Cache) and allows some third-party apps to edit/view what’s inside. It is not a mere good thing to happen, as it could even fetch your passwords and much other information kept on the devices.
On the other hand, the Meltdown flaw has only affected the Intel CPU powered devices, even including iMacs and MacBooks. This also exposes the protected data, and even some apps may interfere the data of another app over this. However, these two flaws which researchers found recently make every one of us vulnerable to a malware attack or data breach. More manufacturers are coming forward with the update fix for these security flaws. The update by Essential to the Essential PH-1 users will get global soon.
Stay tuned!