Intel's Secret CPU-On-Chip Management Engine (ME) Runs on MINIX OS
Source: https://www.bleeping...ns-on-minix-os/
This are only some extractions from the page (better go to read source and watch there a very interesting video):
Intel ME runs on MINIX, Google finds
According to Ron Minnich, a Software Engineer at Google, MINIX is at the heart of Intel's Management Engine (ME), a secret processor embedded in all Intel CPUs sold in the last decade.
Despite many people calling ME a backdoor into everyone's computers, Intel has always advertised ME as a way for companies to manage workstations on internal networks by allowing system administrators to monitor, maintain, update, upgrade, and repair Intel-based computers from a remote, central location.
This is because the ME component runs independently from the user's main OS, with separate processes, threads, memory manager, hardware bus driver, file system, and many other components.
The talk, available for download here and in the YouTube video embedded below, details Google's recent efforts at removing proprietary firmware — like Intel ME — from its internal servers.
Google cited worries that the Intel ME (actually MINIX) code runs on their CPU's deepest access level — Ring "-3" — and also runs a web server component that allows anyone to remotely connect to remote computers, even when the main OS is turned off.
For a company that holds information on almost all Internet users, Intel ME is a gaping security hole its engineers are now actively trying to nuke off their systems. See video: https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo
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