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Disabling Intel’s backdoors on modern laptops
(hackaday.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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IntelME is an embedded Microcontroller in the Intel Chipset (in the south-bridge chip) which depending on variations in generation, has a multitude of different features such as Active Management Technology used in IT department, clock controls and a few more things.
Because it is closed source there are security concerns about possible vulnerabilities in it which could possibly be exploited, as well as several conspiracy theories about it. Due to that hobbyists as well as certain OEMs have found out ways to disable it in attempt to mitigate these issues.
For more detailed information on it I would highly recommend this video by CCC on the subject, it covers what IntelME does and how it was able to be disabled.
34C3 - Intel ME: Myths and reality (Youtube)
34C3 - Intel ME: Myths and reality (media.ccc.de)
AMT is a great way to get a passworded VNC session into the terminal.
Well provided your OEM hasn't disabled it, on most of the computers I checked with IntelMEtool (the ones new enough to have IntelME) I found that AMT shows up as disabled on most of them, except for a few.