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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 23 2017, @12:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the get-your-patches-here dept.

It's time to update your Management Engine:

Intel has issued a security alert that management firmware on a number of recent PC, server, and Internet-of-Things processor platforms are vulnerable to remote attack. Using the vulnerabilities, the most severe of which was uncovered by Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy of Positive Technologies Research, remote attackers could launch commands on a host of Intel-based computers, including laptops and desktops shipped with Intel Core processors since 2015. They could gain access to privileged system information, and millions of computers could essentially be taken over as a result of the bug. Most of the vulnerabilities require physical access to the targeted device, but one allows remote attacks with administrative access.

The company has posted a detection tool on its support website for Windows and Linux to help identify systems that are vulnerable. In the security alert, members of Intel's security team stated that "in response to issues identified by external researchers, Intel has performed an in-depth comprehensive security review of its Intel® Management Engine (ME), Intel® Trusted Execution Engine (TXE), and Intel® Server Platform Services (SPS) with the objective of enhancing firmware resilience."

Intel® Management Engine Critical Firmware Update (Intel SA-00086)

U.S. government warns about cyber bug in Intel chips

The U.S. government on Tuesday urged businesses to act on an Intel Corp alert about security flaws in widely used computer chips as industry researchers scrambled to understand the impact of the newly disclosed vulnerability.

The Department of Homeland Security gave the guidance a day after Intel said it had identified security vulnerabilities in remote-management software known as 'Management Engine' that shipped with eight types of processors used in business computers sold by Dell Technologies, Lenovo, HP Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and other manufacturers."

Security experts said that it was not clear how difficult it would be to exploit the vulnerabilities to launch attacks, though they found the disclosure troubling because the affected chips were widely used.

"These vulnerabilities affect essentially every business computer and server with an Intel processor released in the last two years," said Jay Little, a security engineer with cyber consulting firm Trail of Bits.

The official warning is here. Good luck to everybody! Good luck.

Also at Reuters and the EFF.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @03:01PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @03:01PM (#600673)

    Yes, it's heavy and slow, gets hot and the fans constantly make a lovely buzz. But no, there's no hardware rootkit and it does everything I need it to do.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:09PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:09PM (#600790)

    I've just taken the laptop heatsinks of recently, cleaned of their heatsink compound/patch and replaced with new and some copper shims. Clean out the dust/lint and no more constant fan.

    • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday November 27 2017, @09:00PM

      by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 27 2017, @09:00PM (#602172) Journal

      That's the wrong way! :P

      First take out the laptop battery you don't have a need for anyway (if you do need it afterwards you can always put it back). Then let the laptop burn itself in under an internal blanket of nicotine smoke, fat, grease, skin residue, lint, and dust so that the fans stop working.

      If it doesn't set your place on fire you've got yourself a nice fanless laptop :)

      Try to avoid unblocking the fan, it will be extremely loud and annoying if it ever gets going. Or perhaps some of the internal grime melted and let it loose? Then turn the laptop off so it can cool down and let the grime re-solidify :D

      Fans in laptops are ¤$%/&!\ stupid, kill them, kill them with fire!

      --
      Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))