Neutralize ME Firmware on SandyBridge and IvyBridge Platforms

Post by discardorama » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 4:49 AM UTC

sounds wrote: post #4

This 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…

Post by BuuQu9hu » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:02 AM UTC

dispose13432 wrote: post #53

BuuQu9hu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: RISC-V is an Open Standard. Of course there will be both proprietary and open implementations of RISC-V.

So 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

Post by BuuQu9hu » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:04 AM UTC

feld wrote: post #30

TD-Linux wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How 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-s... [2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/onchip/open-v

Not 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.

Post by persmule » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 7:11 AM UTC

persmule wrote: post #55

mmastrac wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was confusing to me as well. I'm parsing this as the NIC doesn't work after a cold boot, but does after a warm boot.

Your interpretation is correct. I am going to fix this ambiguity.

Post by corna » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 8:29 AM UTC

twr wrote: post #59

I 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 | gr…