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Does this mean AMD is inherently more secure?
by arcanus 8y ago
Does this mean AMD is inherently more secure?
- chasil 8y agoAMD has an equivalent of the Intel ME that was called the "Platform Security Processor" and is now known as the "Secure Processor." Flaws have been found in it. They are probably not as bad as Intel. Leaving the VISA environment accessible to ME is something that I hope AMD would never entertain out of a wealth of caution for their customers.
- richardwhiuk 8y ago> They are probably not as bad as Intel. Not sure there's any evidence this is likely to be true - except for the fact Intel processors are widely deployed.
- chasil 8y agoAMD did not suffer from Meltdown. We would hope that their architectural restraint would extend to their SP.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago> Flaws have been found in it. They are probably not as bad as Intel. It's slightly ambiguous whether you mean 'the flaws in AMD IME-near-equivalent are not as bad as the flaws in the IME' or 'AMD's IME-near-equivalent is not as bad as the IME'. On the 2nd interpretation, it seems that AMD's 'ME' is likely not as powerful/mature as Intel's ME. On the other hand, on certain machines the IME can be disabled or largely neutralised, while I know of no such possibility for AMD.
- chasil 8y agoIntel ME just moved away from ARC processors to an internally-developed 486. The maturity of both platforms is opaque, varying, and the only reasonable feature that most consumers would want is an off switch.
- sufiyan 8y agoTest portions (debug architecture) are necessary for all chips. It is otherwise impossible to make sure what you have actually works as you intend.