I imagine this is more of a functional issue. i.e., the loop buffer caused corruption of the instruction stream under some weird specific circumstances. Spectre

I imagine this is more of a functional issue. i.e., the loop buffer caused corruption of the instruction stream under some weird specific circumstances. Spectre and Meltdown are not functional issues but rather just side channel issues. This should be fun, however, for someone with enough time to chase down and try and find the bug. Depending on the consequences of the bug and the conditions under which it hits, maybe you could even write an exploit (either going from JavaScript to the browser or from user mode to the kernel) with it :) Though, I strongly suspect that reverse engineering and weaponizing the bug without any insider knowledge will be exceedingly difficult. And, anyways, there's also a decent chance this issue just leads to a hang/livelock/MCE which would make it pointless to exploit.