On the Spectre and Meltdown Processor Security Vulnerabilities

Abstract

This paper first reviews the Spectre and Meltdown processor security vulnerabilities that were revealed during January-October 2018 and that allow the extraction of protected information from billions of processors in systems large and small. It then discusses short-term mitigation actions and speculates on the longer-term implications to computer software and hardware. The paper expands from a keynote/panel by the authors at IEEE Hot Chips 2018.