And if I don't update, what happens?

[whoololon]

Well, after all the talk about those things called Meltdown and Spectre, after reading the technical causes (and not understanding a thing), I ask the following in the most naive and ignorant way:

What would be the effects of these vulnerabilities on a home computer?

Thanks in advance.

[kynes]

@whoololon as long as there are countermeasures for the really important things, like bank accounts (coordinate cards) or SMS to confirm card payments, the "only" thing I think that could happen to you is that they would impersonate your identity by stealing your passwords.

[cobito]

As far as I understand, nothing if you don't install any malware that exploits the flaw. The danger manifests if there are several users simultaneously using the PC and one of them runs a program that reads protected addresses. On a home PC, this is difficult to materialize unless you share the PC with a stranger and both of you tend not to turn off the machine leaving the session locked.

If you don't update, you basically give rise to being attacked by a new type of malware in the same way that being updated you could be attacked by a keylogger. From there, what @kynes says.

Let someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[whoololon]

It's just that Asrock hasn't released anything for the Z77, so I have no way to protect myself against Spectre unless I change platforms.
I installed the MS patch a few days ago, but it only fixes the Meltdown issue.

Thanks for the clarification.

[kynes]

Don't stress, think about the number of devices that won't have new firmware with new microcodes, in addition to the fact that there are surely hundreds of vulnerabilities that are more "attackable" than Spectre, in addition to the fact that browsers will introduce patches to prevent attacks with JavaScript, the most serious due to its use in almost all modern websites. Moreover, think about how many Android phones will be left on Android 7 or lower, and I assure you that for a hacker, the information on your phone is much more useful than that on your PC.