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Intel Patches Remote Execution Hole That's Been Hidden In Its Chips Since 2008 (theregister.co.uk)
Chris Williams reports via The Register: Intel processor chipsets have, for roughly the past nine years, harbored a security flaw that can be exploited to remotely control and infect vulnerable systems with virtually undetectable spyware and other malicious code. Specifically, the bug is in Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT), Standard Manageability (ISM) and Small Business Technology (SBT) firmware versions 6 to 11.6. According to Chipzilla, the security hole allows "an unprivileged attacker to gain control of the manageability features provided by these products." That means hackers exploiting the flaw can silently snoop on a vulnerable machine's users, make changes to files and read them, install rootkits and other malware, and so on. This is possible across the network, or with local access. These management features have been available in various Intel chipsets for years, starting with the Nehalem Core i7 in 2008, all the way up to Kaby Lake Core parts in 2017. According to Intel today, this critical security vulnerability, labeled CVE-2017-5689, was found and reported in March by Maksim Malyutin at Embedi. To get the patch to close the hole, you'll have to pester your machine's manufacturer for a firmware update, or try the mitigations here. These updates are hoped to arrive within the next few weeks.
Keep in mind that this is a security hole in a system that was always backdoored by Intel.
It's a separate CPU with its own network connection, outside the control of the main CPU, it has full access to all the system and it was put in place deliberately by Intel. It communicates using SOAP over HTTP or HTTPS.
It has been in all server and business chips FROM INTEL for years now....
It can kill a PC, it can wipe harddisks (killing encryption keys used to access encrypted disks), it can read everything, do anything, rewrite the processor software, bypass any encryption and any security.
Hardware vendors had access to this for years.
So NSA would have had access to this for years.
Russian FSB would have had access to this for years.
China would have had access to this for years.
And now every hacker has access.
When you backdoor technology you end up with bad actors putting Orange Julius in office.
Eh, most people figured the entire thing was dreamed up by the NSA as soon as they learned what it did and how it worked.