Several manufacturers of portable equipment, have chosen directly to deactivate the IME of the Intel processors affected by the vulnerability, for security for the users.
Vulnerabilities in systems are quite normal and companies are working to fix these problems as soon as possible. A few days ago, we echoed a vulnerability in Intel processors, specifically in the IME of these and that concerned users and manufacturers. This security hole occurs in 6th Generation (Skylake), 7th Generation (Kaby Lake) and 8th Generation (Coffee Lake) processors, unless it is known, for now and laptop manufacturers have worked to solve these problems .
The Intel Management Engine (IME) security problem is not new, as many security experts have been warning of the existence of major security holes for years. This security hole in the IME, allows administrators to remotely access a machine and can be found on all Intel processors since 2008. Intel has admitted a real risk in the IME through an exploit. This would allow remote control of the system, which is a problem and laptop manufacturers don't even want to think about this problem, so they have disabled it, to protect users' systems.
If you want to know which are the manufacturers and equipment that have the IME deactivated, we put them below:
- Dell: The company offers to disable the IME, whenever the user wants it on Dell Latitude 14 Rugged, Dell Latitude 15 E5570 and Dell Latitude 12 Rugged computers.
- Purism: This lesser known company is disabling them directly on all the new laptops that they are releasing on the market. This manufacturer has also launched software to protect laptops that are already in the hands of users.
- System76: They copy the Purism way of working and have released a software update for the affected laptops.
Source: Eteknix
