Apple, Android or Windows: Why smartphones, laptops face 'hacking' risks

Reports suggest the industry has known of the problem for months but only limited details have been disclosed so far

Less than a week into 2018 and we may have already seen the year’s biggest technology story. Researchers have identified a security flaw in the computer processors made by three of the world’s biggest chip designers, Intel, AMD and ARM, and a second flaw in Intel chips. This means that almost every smartphone, tablet, laptop and business computer in the world could be vulnerable to having sensitive data including passwords stolen. The cloud servers that store websites and other internet data are also at risk.

This is one of the biggest cyber security vulnerabilities we’re