Apple: All Mac and iOS devices affected by Meltdown and Spectre bugs

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Apple told its customers Thursday all of its Mac systems and iOS devices are affected by a pair of widespread computer chip security flaws.

The company shared a statement announcing it has released mitigations in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2 to defend against the bug known as Meltdown and will release mitigations in Safari to defend against the other bug known as Spectre.

"All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time," Apple said. "Since exploiting many of these issues requires a malicious app to be loaded on your Mac or iOS device, we recommend downloading software only from trusted sources such as the App Store."

The company also noted the Apple Watch is not affected by Meltdown.

Researchers published a report Wednesday saying billions of devices might be at risk after researchers found two security flaws inside Intel chips that allow hackers to enter processors and steal sensitive data.

Meltdown appears to only affect desktop, laptop and cloud computers that use intel processing chips.

Spectre is believed to be more widespread, affecting "almost every system" including desktops, laptops, cloud servers, as well as smartphones.