Dell is charging $20 to let you disable Intel’s flawed Management Engine

[Puppy]

Extortion: Dell is charging $20 to let you disable Intel’s flawed Management Engine
https://mspoweruser.com/extortion-dell- ... nt-engine/

New trend to pay for buggy design?

[dr_st]

They have to provide a custom SPI image for this. Essentially it's no different than any other customization option.

[Puppy]

It wouldn't be required if it weren't that buggy. So it is up to Intel to resolve the mess.

[dr_st]

It's not required even now. The "serious" bugs have little practical implication, for someone not actually using AMT.

Every piece of software/firmware ever written is buggy. Intel AMT is a rather complicated one as well. And Intel always works actively to fix AMT/ME bugs as they are discovered.

[Puppy]

Every piece of software/firmware ever written is buggy. Intel AMT is a rather complicated one as well. And Intel always works actively to fix AMT/ME bugs as they are discovered.

It took them 7 years to fix well-known bug latety. Yes, it is complicated, that's why it makes sense to offer an option to completely disabled it (for free).

Even Microsoft has learnt. Many years ago the Windows NT server had enabled all features by default, to make it secure you had to know all of them and disable the unwanted ones. Now they finally realized the opposite option, disable everything by default and let administrators enable selected ones only, is the right way.

[Puppy]

Intel to slap hardware lock on Management Engine code to thwart downgrade attacks
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/1 ... ased_lock/

From version 12 onward, ME-equipped chips will defend against patch rollbacks

AMD to the rescue?

[TPFanatic]

Messing with ME / AMT on Nehalem/Arrandale Thinkpads carries the risk of semi-bricking the laptop, it happened to my X201. Many threads on Lenovo forums about X201, X201 Tablet, T410, T410s, and L412 getting [censored] by corruption of Intel ME.

[Puppy]

Intel has a tool to detect flaws in ME/AMT
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27150

[Puppy]

Gone in 30 seconds: New Intel AMT exploit is scarier than you can ever fathom
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gone-in-3 ... 216.0.html

TL;DR Change your default AMT password you probably don't know about at all.

[dr_st]

TL;DR Change your default AMT password you probably don't know about at all.

Yep, and also make sure there is a BIOS password (because the AMT settings including password can be reset through the BIOS), and also make sure the computer is not left unsupervised and unlocked, and that the hard drive is encrypted. Because an attacker with physical access (which is what the article is talking about) can, you know, steal it.