10 ms·
Neutralize ME Firmware on SandyBridge and IvyBridge Platforms
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- snvzz 10y agoThe ridiculous shit that needs to be done just to rid of some blob. RISC-V can't take the market over fast enough.
- TD-Linux 10y agoHow much are you willing to pay for it? There's the Talos Secure Workstation, which has no such ME firmware (but costs ~$4.5k) [1]. A RISC-V desktop is pretty far out. There is an Arduino style microcontroller being made in silicon, though [2]. [1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-s... [2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/onchip/open-v https://www.crowdsupply.com/onchip/open-v
- dsp1234 10y agoNote that it looks like they may not make their goal. It ends on Dec 15th, and they only have about 10% raised ($344,310 raised of $3,700,000 goal)
- feld 10y agoIt's only 32bit. This is not something I'm interested in funding. If it was 64bit or the 128bit version of RISC-V it would be more alluring.
- thesrcmustflow 10y agoWhere did you read that? The TALOS machine uses POWER8 which is 64 bit. EDIT: Ah right there are two different links above
- jdub 10y agoIt's a microcontroller. Think ARM Cortex-M0.
- wolfgke 10y ago> How much are you willing to pay for it? Wrong question. Correct question would be: "How much are you willing and able to pay for it?" (for me it much more strongly fails because of the second criterion).
- loeg 10y agoIf you're willing to pay more than you're able to, I think you need to reevaluate your approach to personal finance first.
- wolfgke 10y agoThanks, but I believe my approach to personal finance is quite right and responsible. This does not contradict the fact that there are things that I am willing to pay for, but not able to. Exactly because my approach to personal finance is responsible, I don't spend money in this situation.
- loeg 10y agoI think we must understand the word "willing" differently.
- feld 10y agoNot really. They're talking Raspberry PI type devices based on RISC-V on the market by late 2017. Source: MeetBSDCon 2016, update on RISC-V by the team who designed it.
- BuuQu9hu 10y agohttps://youtu.be/QTYiH1Y5UV0?t=39m20s https://youtu.be/QTYiH1Y5UV0?t=39m20s
- dublinben 10y agoIt's more than just "some blob" though. ME is a system within your system, that is completely out of your control. [0] [0] https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme
- dispose13432 10y agoRISC-V is Open Source. Will the RISC-V based CPU in your computer be Open Source? A parallel example is while WebKit is Open Source Chrome isn't
- BuuQu9hu 10y agoCorrection: RISC-V is an Open Standard. Of course there will be both proprietary and open implementations of RISC-V.
- dispose13432 10y agoSo what are the chances that you'll be able to get an open standard RISC? Unlike software, you can't just download the code, you have to pay for a fab
- BuuQu9hu 10y agoRight now there are open implementations that have been taped out into chips and various open FPGA implementations, but nothing for sale. lowRISC seems like the most promising open RISC-V implementation for that. http://riscv.org/ http://riscv.org/ http://lowrisc.org/ http://lowrisc.org/
- BuuQu9hu 10y agoApparently they estimate there will be a Raspberry Pi equivalent for RISC-V in about a year (whole talk worth watching): https://youtu.be/QTYiH1Y5UV0?t=39m20s https://youtu.be/QTYiH1Y5UV0?t=39m20s
- jakobdabo 10y agoA rootkit can be anywhere on the PCIe bus. Just for example, you are using OpenBSD and full disk encryption and you think you are safe? What if the firmware on your NIC can be altered to scan your RAM (using DMA) and send the interesting data (big prime numbers, passwords, etc.) home? What if firmware on your keyboard can be modified (or pre-programmed in factory) to record the last x thousands of keypresses (which will include your boot disk password) on its own flash memory which can be later extracted? There are so many attack vectors.
- simcop2387 10y agoThis is one reason I do like the features of newer CPUs like amds Zen line with memory encryption. Combined with the iommu/vt-d features it should be possible to isolate a hardware device from reading all ram, just the buffers that it should be able to access. Thatll come with a performance hit (based on current hardware being used for VM gaming, maybe about 10%ish at worst) but it would be acceptable for security if that level of attack is something you want to guard against.
- yrro 10y agoAren't IOMMUs supposed to be able to prevent e.g., a NIC from having access to any RAM other than what the OS grants it?
- sounds 10y agoThis appears to be a legitimate ME neutralization. The ME is purportedly placed in "recovery" mode: According to Nicola Corna, the current ME state should have been changed from “normal” to “recovery”. Since the MEI interface is disabled (not visible from a PCI bus scan), there is no way to activate the ME at runtime, even after a full system compromise. It would still be possible to rewrite the BIOS flash chip with a new ME image, but the system would need to be restarted before the ME would read the changes. I don't speak for the FSF, but it sounds like this is as close to an FSF RYF certification as any Intel CPU is going to get. FSF approval of a device requires that all user-modifiable software be Free Software. Previously, no recent Intel CPUs could be FSF certified as "RYF" because the ME chip would shut the system down after 30 minutes. (Side note: no recent Intel CPUs can be considered "stable" without microcode updates which also violate the FSF's RYF guidelines.) [1] http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-fr...
- tunesmith 10y agoME isn't the last obstacle though, is it? Looking at the purism/librem pages, there are still various other subsystems like FSP/EC/SMC. https://puri.sm/posts/bios-freedom-status-nov2014/ https://puri.sm/posts/bios-freedom-status-nov2014/
- pgeorgi 10y agoFSP is a binary running on the CPU, unsigned. That can be replaced with a reimplementation (and was for Sandybridge/Ivybridge) EC/SMC are highly board specific, some even run open source firmware that can be replaced (eg. on Chromebooks) The issue with the ME is that its firmware is signed with an internal Intel key, combined with its property of having full access to the entire system. Even with this hack of invalidating most of the firmware, we don't know for sure what is left running on the ME.
- sounds 10y agoThe FSP is a package (the P in FSP). It includes in it the ME blob. The other parts of it are things like DRAM init. It would take work to develop a fully libre implementation for any Intel chipset, but the biggest hurdle was (and is) the ME blob in the FSP. The EC, SMC, and other blobs are much more the domain of the board designer, and are much easier to make a libre implementation for.
- tedunangst 10y agoWhat if I like using the integrated NIC?
- kevin_b_er 10y agoThe NIC permits remote access to the Intel rootkit, you probably don't want to use the NIC.
- jameskegel 10y agoCan you elaborate?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- yuhong 10y agoIt is supposed to be used for corporate environments using Intel AMT for remote management.
- tedunangst 10y agoIf the solution to ME stealing my secrets is simply "don't plug in a network cable" then that's a lot simpler and I'm not going to bother with the potential brick making. Why go through all this and still not have a working computer?
- dsp1234 10y agoJust reboot after neutralization. "With ME neutralized, the MEI interface disappears from the PCI bus, and the integrated NIC ceases to work, but will resume to work after a reboot."
- sounds 10y agoThe phrasing there is confusing. Does the NIC break because the ME is neutralized? Then rebooting again with the ME neutralized will break the NIC again. Why would the NIC only break once after the ME is neutralized? The system is started from a fully powered-off state after the ME firmware is updated. Maybe the NIC has some sort of non-volatile state that gets updated when the ME fails to initialize, and then the NIC starts working again. That's the most complex explanation so I thought it unlikely, but I'm happy to hear more from someone who has actually neutralized their ME.
- kevin_b_er 10y agorootkit is defined by google search as "a set of software tools that enable an unauthorized user to gain control of a computer system without being detected." * A set of software tools: Check * Unauthorized user: Check Caveat: user is not authorized by you, but by someone else (Intel) * Gain control of a computer system without being detected. Can access your machine while it appears to be "powered off" but plugged in. Has full access to RAM. Can draw undetected on top of screen. Can read screen. Check. So. Does this qualify the Management Engine as a rootkit? It meets the definition. Just because the rootkit is installed by the manufacturer doesn't make it less of one.
- yuhong 10y agoAFAIK the remote network access ("AMT") has to be specifically enabled.
- nitrogen 10y agoSome of the paranoia around ME is the possibility of undocumented commands or magic byte sequences in software or via network interface that give an attacker invisible control of the ME without the user enabling AMT. The NIC is probably still powered and active for WoL. It's also conceivable that a state-level adversary could have hidden arbitrary DMA instructions in a NIC firmware, that only activate with a signed request embedded in a random packet. Some of the largest firmware blobs on Linux systems are for NICs. Most people aren't facing state-level targeted attacks, but without open firmware, it's nearly impossible to know for sure if one is vulnerable. And, with botnets and worms, it only takes one non-state-level attacker discovering the backdoor for everyone to be affected.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kevin_b_er 10y agohttp://people.kth.se/~maguire/DEGREE-PROJECT-REPORTS/100402-Vassilios_Ververis-with-cover.pdf http://people.kth.se/~maguire/DEGREE-PROJECT-REPORTS/100402-... PDF Page 66 This attack could be used indefinite times to compromise the Intel’s AMT remote provisioning process and subverts the security of the non configured PCs that include the AMT functionality even while it is disabled within the BIOS configuration as presented in section 3.7.6. AMT is always active, even if you've set it to "Disabled" and can be remotely activated. Again, without your authorization.
- bsharitt 10y agoAs a potential backdoor with access to a computer with compromising the OS, how much is ME neutralized by just not using the integrated NIC and instead using a PCI-E or USB NIC?
- yuhong 10y agoHow do you think it accesses the network? In fact, I don't think every version has network support in the first place.
- timonovici 10y agoIt is designed for remote management of a computer. Take your best shot, do you think it has network support? Also, it doesn't need for the computer to be powered on. One of the advertised features is remote HDD wipe, in case your laptop is stolen.
- sounds 10y agoThe ME firmware includes a Java VM so that other companies can run their secret apps inside the ME's environment (e.g. DRM crypto plugins). That is just one example of all the features included in the ME firmware, and none of it is published or well documented, much less audited at the source level by an independent third party. The ME is very alarming, and seems to only become more alarming the closer you look at what it is designed to do.
- qb45 10y agoAnd any code running there can read and write your RAM as it pleases because "ME is secure and obviously nothing bad can ever happen there so there's no reason to protect other things from the ME".
- yuhong 10y agoI think the most important lesson is that the arms race against laptop theft is ridiculous.
- phantom_oracle 10y agoHas Intel ever commented about this issue of removing ME? Surely, at least 1 Intel staffer reads HN and they must have discussed this internally. Unless they just brush this off as negligible (a couple thousand paranoid/"extremist" users) ?
- wmf 10y agoTheir discussion may have consisted of "too bad these extremists don't realize that the ME is harmless if you don't have an Intel NIC".
- devereaux 10y agoThere is a device visible on the PCI bus. How hard is it to imagine that userland programs could somehow pass requests to that device, and have the ME do bad things to the CPU or the RAM? How hard is it to imagine some special string in RAM could trigger the ME in a similar way? (so many CPU instructions - I would be surprised if there wasn't one to talk to the ME) Exploits and vulnerability are mitigated by proper analysis and ecological diversity. Here we have an attack channel present of every single Intel based computer, regardless of the CPU. Call me an extremist if you want, but this is far from harmless.
- tedunangst 10y agoIf userland processes are passing unauthorized commands to PCI devices, you have bigger problems.
- ackalker 10y agoThey're called proprietary video drivers, and yes, they pass unknown commands, without user authorization (think DRM) to PCI(e) devices (video cards) all the time.
- lallysingh 10y agoIf you're running highly privileged binary blob drivers, is ME really the attack vector you should be worried about?
- WhitneyLand 10y agoBeautiful work. Standing offer to buy dinner for any of the contributors if they come through Dallas.
- Puts 10y agoWhat happened to VIA and their x86 CPUs and mini-itx platform people used to build media PCs on? Wouldn't that be a viable option if you really want to avoid ME?
- PeCaN 10y agoVIA is still around. They announced a new core with AVX2 support, Isaiah II, around late 2014 but it appears their x86_64 license will run out before it actually gets produced. The situation is really unclear. In 2010 they got a 6-year license extension thanks to the FTC, so it's possible VIA can't actually produce x86 CPUs anymore. VIA is 100% a viable option—they support SSE 4.1, run Windows 10, and their integrated GPUs even run DirectX11 natively¹—except that they compete with Atom, not desktop or even regular laptop CPUs. However, the current (40nm Isaiah) “high-end” VIA microarchitecture is a out-of-order, 3-fetch 7-dispatch wide² superscalar, fully pipelined core. So it should outperform a modern Atom by a decent margin, with only slightly higher power consumption. Apparently VIA is still fairly popular in China (and by virtue of being a Taiwanese company, possibly Japan as well). 1. See e.g. http://www.viatech.com/en/boards/mini-itx/epia-m920/ http://www.viatech.com/en/boards/mini-itx/epia-m920/ 2. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/01/via-cpu-isaiah/2/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/01/via-cpu-isaiah/2/
- gwu78 10y agoSeems like the BBB is more versatile than the x220. Not to mention it has no ME. +1 for the use of ifdtool.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- twr 10y agoI succeeded at doing this to an old Asus Z68 motherboard. Steps: flashrom -p internal -r bios.rom ifdtool -x bios.rom python3 me_cleaner.py flashregion_2_intel_me.bin python2 dump_me.py flashregion_2_intel_me.bin -x python2 me_sigcheck.py FTPR_part.bin ifdtool -i ME:flashregion_2_intel_me.bin bios.rom exit # Skip this line if you're okay with bricking your motherboard. flashrom -p internal -w bios.rom.new `lspci | grep -i mei` and `lsmod | grep mei` are now empty. intelmetool: ME: FW Partition Table : OK ME: Bringup Loader Failure : NO ME: Firmware Init Complete : NO ME: Manufacturing Mode : NO ME: Boot Options Present : NO ME: Update In Progress : NO ME: Current Working State : Initializing ME: Current Operation State : Bring up ME: Current Operation Mode : Normal ME: Error Code : Debug Failure ME: Progress Phase : BUP Phase ME: Power Management Event : Pseudo-global reset ME: Progress Phase State : 0x3b ... ME has a broken implementation on your board with this BIOS ME: failed to become ready It took a hard reset to re-enable integrated ethernet. Awesome!
- corna 10y agoPlease report it here https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/issues/3 https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/issues/3 Thanks
- spikengineer 10y agoAny research on how to disable AMD PSP.