Intel's chip management system has security hole

A FEAYURE in Intel chips designed to prevent the motherboard from self-destructing can be hijacked by crackers.

Cyber boffin Loïc Duflot, who is computer security specialist for the French government's Secretary General for National Defence information technology laboratory, said that every computer that runs Intel chips is at risk.

Speaking at the CanSecWest/core06 conference Duflot said that Intel installed a feature so that when the processor begins to overheat or encounters other conditions that could threaten the motherboard, it momentarily freezes and stores its activity.

However, apparently hackers can appropriate that safeguard to make the machine interrupt operations and enter System Management Mode. From there they enter the System Management RAM and replace the default emergency-response software with custom software which gives them full administrative privileges.

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