[Mashiro]

The Intel Management Engine is a hidden fully blown OS stack on ring -2 inside all Intel CPUs. It operates on an entirely different level. The BIOS/EFI/UEFI nor your normal OS knows of its existence and isn't able to control it (other than firmware updates for it). It even operates when your computer is shutdown. What does it do? It takes care of a lot of low level tasks that you don't even know about in the background and also security stuff. The thing is that this hidden OS has full access to the BIOS/EF/UEFI and your OS and can do whatever it simply wants... without your OS or you knowing about it. It has more access THAN YOU DO!

The worst to come is that it has security holes that allow to gain access to it and perform remote code execution even when your PC is turned off (of course still needs to be connect to power and is connected to the network). So all your OS security is absolutely worthless... thanks to this backdoor that you can't control (well, if you use its security holes you can) normally. Isn't that great?

And should we talk about the security holes that are hardware based? Like all this issues with CPUs? The x86 CPU architecture is quite like a swiss cheese.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFs9Yu2QQcg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMEJCLX2dtw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3FbTMqYi4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubmKdOMRhLk

The legend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrksBdWcZgQ