# Spectre Links: [[Transient Execution]] - Wikipedia [page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)): *Spectre refers to one of the two original transient execution CPU vulnerabilities (the other being Meltdown), which involve microarchitectural timing side-channel attacks. These affect modern microprocessors that perform branch prediction and other forms of speculation.[1][2][3] On most processors, the speculative execution resulting from a branch misprediction may leave observable side effects that may reveal private data to attackers. For example, if the pattern of memory accesses performed by such speculative execution depends on private data, the resulting state of the data cache constitutes a side channel through which an attacker may be able to extract information about the private data using a timing attack.[4][5][6]* ### [Primary website](https://meltdownattack.com/) *Spectre breaks the isolation between different applications. It allows an attacker to trick error-free programs, which follow best practices, into leaking their secrets. In fact, the safety checks of said best practices actually increase the attack surface and may make applications more susceptible to Spectre* *Spectre is harder to exploit than Meltdown, but it is also harder to mitigate. [However, it is possible to prevent specific known exploits based on Spectre through software patches.](https://meltdownattack.com/#faq-fix)* ## See also ### - [[Meltdown]]