Intel Q3’17 ME 11.x, SPS 4.0, and TXE 3.0 Security Review Cumulative Update

[SirGod]

Summary: 

In response to issues identified by external researchers, Intel has performed an in-depth comprehensive security review of our Intel® Management Engine (ME), Intel® Server Platform Services (SPS), and Intel® Trusted Execution Engine (TXE) with the objective of enhancing firmware resilience.

As a result, Intel has identified security vulnerabilities that could potentially place impacted platforms at risk.

 

Description: 

In response to issues identified by external researchers, Intel has performed an in-depth comprehensive security review of its Intel® Management Engine (ME), Intel® Trusted Execution Engine (TXE), and Intel® Server Platform Services (SPS) with the objective of enhancing firmware resilience.

As a result, Intel has identified several security vulnerabilities that could potentially place impacted platforms at risk. Systems using ME Firmware versions 11.0/11.5/11.6/11.7/11.10/11.20, SPS Firmware version 4.0, and TXE version 3.0 are impacted.

 

Affected products: 

 

6th, 7th & 8th Generation Intel® Core™ Processor Family

Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1200 v5 & v6 Product Family

Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family

Intel® Xeon® Processor W Family

Intel® Atom® C3000 Processor Family

Apollo Lake Intel® Atom Processor E3900 series

Apollo Lake Intel® Pentium™

Celeron™ N and J series Processors

 

Based on the items identified through the comprehensive security review, an attacker could gain unauthorized access to platform, Intel® ME feature, and 3rd party secrets protected by the Intel® Management Engine (ME), Intel® Server Platform Service (SPS), or Intel® Trusted Execution Engine (TXE).

 

This includes scenarios where a successful attacker could:

 

• Impersonate the ME/SPS/TXE, thereby impacting local security feature attestation validity.
• Load and execute arbitrary code outside the visibility of the user and operating system.
• Cause a system crash or system instability.
• For more information, please see this Intel Support article

 

Link Advisory: https://security-center.intel.com/advisory.aspx?intelid=INTEL-SA-00086&languageid=en-fr