IPMI cards are always-on, and run outside the rest of the server. They receive power even if the server is shut down. These are used for out-of-band management,

IPMI cards are always-on, and run outside the rest of the server. They receive power even if the server is shut down. These are used for out-of-band management, power on/off, etc. Imagine if someone were to have control of the firmware running on your IPMI cards... they would have physical access to your server (essentially) from a remote location. You often don't control what's running on the IPMI cards or if they call home, etc. What if HP or Dell had sleeper software in your IPMI cards, and when it wakes up, opens a direct connection to your server?