Windows 10: Flaws found in Intel Management Engine (ME), TXE and SPS

.rar is a propriorory compression format for WinRAR. You can either buy WinRAR or (what I'd suggest) download 7-zip.

7-zip is free and will open most all compression formats including .rar.

The link is here 7-Zip and it unzips the above file fine like this:

 

I use 7 zip. In fact once Chrome downloaded the actual .rar file the 7zip extracted it and I could examine the contents. It was Firefox 57 (Quantum) that wasn't doing an obvious download. It only opened the contents of the file

Thanks for all this infol

 

You can (if you want) make a self extracting file. So you can compress something with 7-zip (or Win-RAR or WinZip) and put the bit of code required to decompress it in the file your sender receives. When the person downloads it it decompresses using that bit of code.

Not many people do that any more as almost everyone has broadband (or at least 3G/4G) but it still exists even if most people don't care about compression.

I'll get my coat now.

 

FWIW:

Intel ME explained in basically newbie terms, but good info.

*ArrowIntel Management Engine, Explained: The Tiny Computer Inside Your CPU

 

Earlier than 6th gen platforms are not affected.

 

No idea when my Asus G11CD desktop will have update available, so far nothing on Asus site lol, guess will just have to wait patiently lol

 

Nothing we can do but wait. I have checked two desktops and one laptop and all three are vulnerable and no bios updates available. I still have a desktop and a laptop to check.

 

I have a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard with a i5-3570K CPU. The Intel tool says my system is not at risk. However, Gigabyte has just released a new BIOS F16j for this 2012 motherboard which says "Adjust MATS table to improve OS compatibility". Does this relate to the Intel vulnerability or something else?

 

Hi,
@Steve C : That has nothing to do with this vulnerability.

Cheers, *Wink

 

Information on VBS & MATS: Virtualization-based Security (VBS) | Microsoft Docs

And if you really want to understand how it all comes together(send everyone away, make a large pot of coffee, and have fun(?)reading and following all the links): Mitigate threats by using Windows 10 security features (Windows 10) | Microsoft Docs

 

Isn't the point that this runs underneath Windows (or Linux or any other OS you are running).

There is not really any point reading about mitigations MS may have done if your system is compromised before Windows even loads.

Windows (or any other OS) is unaware of what IME is doing. Just see the first post in this thread.

Please don't think me a tin foil hatted loon (I'm not) but surely Intel baking a separate CPU and OS running under and before any OS you install is something to be mildly concerned about. Especially if its (undisclosed) functionality isn't documented at all and then turns out to be vulnerable.

 

Even the developer of Minix(the OS that's used for IME) was surprised.
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/intel/

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Professor at the Vrije Universiteit

 

Exactly.....point in fact. Remember the Lenovo HDD with the embedded firmware reporting to the NSA. Not a tinfoil hatted loon.....not at all.

 

Yep! My Lenovo Intel Lappy is a 14" Flex 4-1470 and isn't even mentioned in Lenovo's list of affected computers. The first one listed is the Flex 5-1470, and nope, that wasn't a typo on their part.

So, I'm not sure what I should do.

 

See Lenovo's Intel ME 11.x, SPS 4.0, and TXE 3.0 Cumulative Security Update list.