Privacy

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Intel Management Engine (ME) explained | disabling the potential backdoor (www.youtube.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Pantherina@feddit.de to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

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

Because parts of it have already been reverse engineered, we know it runs a modified version of Minix, and I would think that if a backdoor had been found during the reverse engineering process, that it would have been huge fucking computer security news.

It's only a backdoor in the sense that Intel was practicing security through obscurity instead of real security. There is proof an attacker could abuse the IME, but there is not proof it's an intended backdoor for use by Intel in spying on their customers.

EDIT: Further, as an all-AMD user, I almost never see this same scrutiny applied to the AMD Platform Security Processor. We know far less about it, and it deserves the same level of scrutiny, honestly.

[–] Treczoks@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago

that it would have been huge fucking computer security news.

Nope. If someone found such a backdoor, it is more likely he/she sold it to the three letter agencies, who love hoarding vulnerabilities like that.

[–] ReakDuck@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago

Damn, thanks.

I was afraid for a second if my decision was bad for the server to use Intel with ME instead of a very specific hardware with coreboot.

I think this would cost me 1000€ instead of 120€ just for being paranoid.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 6 months ago

I agree the word "backdoor" is used too often