There is a device visible on the PCI bus. How hard is it to imagine that userland programs could somehow pass requests to that device, and have the ME do bad things to the CPU or the RAM?
How hard is it to imagine some special string in RAM could trigger the ME in a similar way? (so many CPU instructions - I would be surprised if there wasn't one to talk to the ME)
Exploits and vulnerability are mitigated by proper analysis and ecological diversity.
Here we have an attack channel present of every single Intel based computer, regardless of the CPU.
Call me an extremist if you want, but this is far from harmless.
How hard is it to imagine some special string in RAM could trigger the ME in a similar way? (so many CPU instructions - I would be surprised if there wasn't one to talk to the ME)
Exploits and vulnerability are mitigated by proper analysis and ecological diversity.
Here we have an attack channel present of every single Intel based computer, regardless of the CPU.
Call me an extremist if you want, but this is far from harmless.