Someone reverse engineered the intel backdoor. (or at least part of it)

[Red Squirrel]

I figured it would be a matter of time... this is great news. The more we can understand how this works the easier it will be to disable it, or perhaps find out what situations it won't work in, ex: certain hardware combinations.

https://puri.sm/posts/reverse-engineering-the-intel-management-engine-romp-module/

 

[John Connor]

I don't think many home computers have this feature. But you can find out with Intel's checker software. https://security-center.intel.com/advisory.aspx?intelid=INTEL-SA-00075&languageid=en-fr

 

[coercitiv]

I don't think many home computers have this feature.

Intel Management Engine is present in every modern Intel CPU. What is considered enabled and transparently available to the user varies from consumer to business segments, which also alters possible attack vectors, but does not make home computers immune for their foreseeable life.

 

[beginner99]

Intel Management Engine is present in every modern Intel CPU

Not entirely correct. It's located in the chipset / PCH.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Some people may potentially have "business class" cpus though. Ex: servers. I would guess that Xeons probably have this or any higher end desktop cpu.

Though I would guess that if the 3G radio is not true (no one has proven this as true or false yet) then for it to work over ethernet it probably requires an Intel card and maybe even a specific line of motherboards. At the low level, the chip needs to know how to talk to the NIC and the NIC needs to know to talk back.

Essentially it has to silently use it without interfering with the actual OS instance so that takes some coordination at the lower level. So even if they don't figure out an easy way to disable it, they may be able to figure out what hardware configurations make it not work. Though that won't do any good for anyone that has already bought and setup their hardware.

 

[Shivansps]

Intel Management Engine is present in every modern Intel CPU. What is considered enabled and transparently available to the user varies from consumer to business segments, which also alters possible attack vectors, but does not make home computers immune for their foreseeable life.

You need a combination of vPRO supporting CPU and vPRO supporting motherboard to be affected, is a combination of both, if ME is affected them all Intel CPU of the past 6 years are affected.

Is unlikely to see many home pcs with Q chipsets to start with... it may be more common on Ultrabooks cpus.