SINGAPORE – Essential-services sectors in Singapore are working furiously to mitigate cyber security risks linked to two critical hardware flaws discovered last year but made public only last week.
Major banks here and telcos Singtel, StarHub and M1 told The Straits Times they are applying available security software fixes to mitigate “Meltdown” and “Spectre”, the two major flaws affecting almost all computers and smartphones. Some companies have also issued alerts to customers to do the same.
“As a responsible Internet service provider, we always ensure that our network equipment runs the latest software patches,” said StarHub, urging customers to update the software for all their Internet-facing devices.
A Singtel spokesman said: “We advise our customers to monitor the websites of product vendors and device manufacturers for software patches and immediately update their devices with these patches when they are available.”
Billions of computers and smartphones are compromised as they were built using the same processors designed by Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and ARM, where the two flaws were discovered.
Major banks such as DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and UOB said they are…
