Researchers Find a Way to Disable Much-Hated Intel ME Component Courtesy of the NSA
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Researchers from Positive Technologies — a provider of enterprise security solutions — have found a way to disable the Intel Management Engine (ME), a much-hated component of Intel CPUs.
Intel ME is a separate processor embedded with Intel CPUs that runs its own operating system complete with processes, threads, memory manager, hardware bus driver, file system, and many other components.
Intel has always advertised Intel ME as a way for companies to manage computers running on their internal networks. Intel ME includes tools that allow system administrators to monitor, maintain, update, upgrade, and repair computers from a remote, central location.