【eroticized rebel archetype james dean】

The eroticized rebel archetype james deanrecently discovered vulnerability in Intel chips that paves the way for two dangerous exploits -- Meltdown and Spectre -- is worrisome for nearly every computer user. But for many people, their computers aren't only the place where they store data, they're also their personal banks.

Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies are often stored in wallets -- programs that allow owners to access their coins as well as send and receive them. And these wallets, in nearly all their forms, are also in danger.

Simply put, since Meltdown and Spectre can theoretically be used to steal your data, that means they can also be used to steal your cryptocurrency private keys -- and that's typically all an attacker would need to empty your wallet.

All PC and mobile users, regardless if they hold Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, should most definitely upgrade their operating systems and browsers to the latest versions. We have an overview of the steps you can undertake to protect yourself from these vulnerabilities here.

But if you're dealing with cryptocurrencies, there are a couple of additional things you should know.

The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has outlined what the Intel vulnerability means for its users in a blog post on Friday.

The company claims it has prepared for all sorts of possible attacks -- be it an attack on its virtual machines running on Amazon Web Services or any other computers in its network.

"We evaluated the impact to Coinbase and we worked closely with AWS to ensure that all of the hosts running our workloads were patched and, as we continue to cycle those workloads, we don’t migrate to unpatched hosts. This effectively mitigates the risk of a cross-VM attack on our systems. We are also patching all of our base operating systems to further mitigate the risk of this vulnerability being used to escalate privilege by an attacker who can gain access through other means," the post said.

As for the steps users should take, they include the ones listed above (patching your OS and browser), and Coinbase also suggests users to store their coins in Vaults, which are a feature on Coinbase that makes your funds a lot more secure than storing them on a trading account.

Popular open-source Ethereum wallet, MyEtherWallet, issued a short warning on Twitter as well.

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However, for the best possible safety, especially for larger amounts of cryptocoins you plan to keep for a long time, you should consider a hardware wallet. One of the most popular companies in this space, Ledger, announced in a blog post Thursday that its products, Ledger Nano S and Ledger Blue, are immune to Spectre and Meltdown attacks -- even if your PC is compromised.

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"The Ledger hardware wallets have been designed to securely use and store your crypto-assets even in an untrusted environment. No one can access your secrets," the post said.

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Another popular hardware wallet maker, Trezor, has also announced its Trezor wallet cannot be affected by Spectre and Meltdown.

To summarize: Keep all your software updated, and if possible, store your cryptocoins on a secure hardware wallet. Most importantly, follow the news. There may be other exploits stemming from the Intel chip vulnerability in the future.