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Intel x86s Hide Another CPU That Can Take Over Your Machine -- You Can't Audit it

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Been tinfoil hat types fretting about this for at least a couple years, hasn't there?
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I wouldn't call them tinfoil hat types. This is a serious threat to the safety of a system. It basically means that any code running on the machine can 100% of the time bypass the running operating system such as Windows or Linux.

Imagine if some put a key logger there. You'd never be able to remove it and the only way to fix your computer was to buy a whole new CPU from Intel. Nothing you did in the operating system would reveal the key loggers process to you. It could just read arbitrary data from the running operating system whilst being 100% undetectable.

Most security researchers find that sort of thing rather worrying and it is certainly in the realms of being possible.
 
Cromulent said:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story...n-take-over-your-machine----you-cant-audit-it

Very interesting and a little worrying. This kind of technology is always ripe for attack by hackers and will leave your system completely wide open to attack no matter anti-virus program you use. It also has a running TCP/IP server on the network interface that can completely bypass your firewall.
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I wouldn't worry too much about hackers. Systems like "Echelon", if they truly exist make my skin crawl.
 
My point was, that given the length of time people have known about this, it'd surely have been a bigger issue, if there was anything to worry about?

It's here to stay, and if we don't like it, we can go back to using a relic of a CPU, without the backdoors.
 
Isn't this exactly the same as what servers have had for years and years and years. Never heard of any serious exploits there.

DRAC, ILO, IPMI, BMC, Service Processor etc., all been around for ages and serve a similar function/purpose.
 
China did something similar with Lenovo laptops. That's why the MOD banned (and still are banned) purchases of them for official use. You could put one inside an IPS and see it sending packets of data to Chinese IPs.

All the more reason to have a proper firewall on your network TBH.
 
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software that can bypass any firewall ...

I mean really ? it doesn't matter how hidden a processor is, the firewall is still a separate thing, most of us use routers which are completely independent from your computer.

You can still monitor the traffic, you can still block any kind of outgoing traffic and no software can bypass that. I mean c'mon, the story needs to be at least believable ...
 
Griffildur said:
software that can bypass any firewall ...

I mean really ? it doesn't matter how hidden a processor is, the firewall is still a separate thing, most of us use routers which are completely independent from your computer.

You can still monitor the traffic, you can still block any kind of outgoing traffic and no software can bypass that. I mean c'mon, the story needs to be at least believable ...
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If your already on the network you attack the router. Any firewall is pretty much redundant at that point.
 
Griffildur said:
software that can bypass any firewall ...

I mean really ? it doesn't matter how hidden a processor is, the firewall is still a separate thing, most of us use routers which are completely independent from your computer.

You can still monitor the traffic, you can still block any kind of outgoing traffic and no software can bypass that. I mean c'mon, the story needs to be at least believable ...
Click to expand...

Problem is the firewalls on most home routers are pretty simple. They probably won't stop it. Government and corporations spend 5 figures on their firewalls to stop this kind of thing.
 
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I guess a news story of "Intel adds management features to chipset, again" wouldn't be as exciting.

I love the Q87 features, great for a headless server with VNC and remote virtual media access for installing etc.
 
I don't think this is much cause for concern. As others have pointed out, this has been out for a long time. If it was exploitable there would have been a news article about it.
 
lol, I see a thread or article like this every now and then and it tickles me. I'm still waiting for the NSA to hack the "secret computer in my computer".

I'm not saying aliens, but...
 
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