An Intel chip hole allows a computer to be hacked while turned off

in #news7 years ago (edited)

Security experts have discovered a serious hole in Intel chips that allows hackers to remotely control personal computers and control the keyboard and mouse even when the computer is off. This gap was discovered last week, after being undiscovered for about a decade, according to experts.

The gap was a feature of Intel's Active Management Technology, designed to allow device managers to perform remote computer maintenance, as well as other tasks such as software upgrades.

"The Active Management technology requires many powers, from accessing the network to writing on memory and the hard disk of the computer," says Chris Thomas, a strategy expert at Tenable Network Security. Separate from any operating system installed on the device.

He adds that with all this power of the advantage must be a protection, in this case the active management technology is password protected, but the gap in it allows to bypass the password.

According to security researchers at Imbedi, which has been linked to the discovery of the vulnerability, and a paper has been published about it, the gap has been discovered in how the virtual administrator's account handles the web interface with passwords. The vulnerability allows anyone to log on without even writing anything in a registration box "This gap is undoubtedly a programmed error" with Intel.

The results of the discovery were confirmed by security experts at Tenable, which said the vulnerability could be exploited remotely.

It is not yet clear how many devices are affected, but ZDNet, a technical site, said that a search by the search engine "Sudan" (which allows users to find specific types of computers, webcams, distributers, servers, etc., connected to the Internet using various filters), Revealed the presence of more than 8,500 devices infected with this gap, including three thousand in the United States, but reports expect thousands of other infected devices also.

Intel said in a statement it was working with computer manufacturers to launch a security update that would solve the problem and correct the gap starting today, and put forward a detection tool to see if the device was infected.

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uh.. and why did you write "while turned off"? I never read that in regarding to this error and it surely sounds extremely unlikely that a computer can do anything without power. Unlikely like in "we need a new physics".

Actually, a good point. Of course, this security hole can't be exploited while the machine is physically turned off. Concerning this we exaggerated a bit, didn't we @steemmaster?

Please remind me. What is it called when governments and corporations collude? (not rhetorical). Cheers.

capitalism

Yeah. What could possibly go wrong! Cheers guy. Have a great Sunday

Nothing a tinfoil hat hasn't known for 20 years.

Thank you so much for writing about this issue. Followed, upvoted and resteemed.

This is the reason why we need open hardware and projects such as https://www.coreboot.org/ and https://libreboot.org/

thank you :)

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