Intel platforms

Over the years and decades, Intel has developed many hardware platforms¹.

Since the 4-bit 4004 in 1971, they have progressed over 8-bit up to 64-bit systems, retaining a lot of backwards compatibility. Starting with the ICH7 based platforms, Intel introduced their AMT (Active Management Technology)², an out-of-band management solution³ for remote provisioning and support.

AMT evolved with more features over time, carrying the vPro label for machines targeting the business market⁴ and finally converging with more security features such as Boot Guard⁵, Intel’s secure boot implementation, digital content protection (DRM), and more⁶.

Now running on a coprocessor called the (Converged Security and) Manageability Engine⁷, or (CS)ME for short, henceforth abbreviated as ME, a full second operating system of its own is backing the platform.

Boot flow

The ME has its own firmware and bootstraps an Intel platform⁸. The main x86 cores are held in reset until the ME releases them to boot with their own firmware.

Both the ME firmware and the main x86 firmware are stored in the same flash part on a mainboard, partitioned via the Intel Flash Descriptior (IFD).

The following diagram is based on knowledge from various sources, including the coreboot documentation on Intel.

The boot flow for trusted boot is documented publicly⁹ by Intel.

ME classification and security

Security researchers have analyzed the ME¹⁰ and divided hardware variants into 3 generations¹¹ thus far, each with their own multiple firmware versions, including security patch releases^{12 13}. One core aspect in security research has been Boot Guard^{14 15}, which had been introduced with Haswell, Intel’s 4th generation Core series platforms¹⁶, and discussed in the coreboot community¹⁷.

Note that the ME generations roughly correspond with the overall platform, in that ranges of Intel platforms are expected to carry a certain ME hardware generation and specific platforms a certain firmware version range. For example, Lenovo ThinkPad X270 laptops came with 6th/7th gen Intel Core processors, which means 3rd generation ME hardware and version 11.x.x.x ME firmware.

The following table is not necessarily correct nor complete, based on rough findings and notes on Wikipedia¹⁸.

Processor names

Intel publicly documents how to interpret procesor names²³ and what their suffixes mean²⁴.

Abbreviations

Ambiguities

There are colliding acronyms, even within this domain. The following abbreviations have a second meaning:

• FIT: Flash Image Tool (sometimes also called FITC)
• FPT: Flash Programming Tool

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_processors ↩

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_AMT_versions ↩

3. https://www.amplicon-usa.com/actions/viewDoc.cfm?doc=iAMT-white-paper.pdf ↩

4. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/vpro/overview.html ↩

5. https://edc.intel.com/content/www/us/en/design/ipla/software-development-platforms/client/platforms/alder-lake-desktop/12th-generation-intel-core-processors-datasheet-volume-1-of-2/010/boot-guard-technology/ ↩

6. https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/technologies/intel_amt_linux_enablement_guide_revision_1_1.pdf ↩

7. https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Wednesday/us-19-Hasarfaty-Behind-The-Scenes-Of-Intel-Security-And-Manageability-Engine.pdf ↩

8. https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/security-advisory/documents/intel-csme-security-white-paper.pdf ↩

9. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/software-security-guidance/resources/key-usage-in-integrated-firmware-images.html ↩

10. https://bitkeks.eu/blog/2017/12/the-intel-management-engine.html ↩

11. https://papers.put.as/papers/firmware/2014/2014-10_Breakpoint_Intel_ME_-_Two_Years_Later.pdf ↩

12. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000029389/software/chipset-software.html?wapkw=csme ↩

13. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000055675/technologies.html?wapkw=csme ↩

14. https://prohoster.info/en/blog/administrirovanie/doverennaya-zagruzka-shryodingera-intel-boot-guard ↩

15. https://github.com/flothrone/bootguard ↩

16. https://web.archive.org/web/20201129154607/https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-briefs/4th-gen-core-family-mobile-brief.pdf ↩

17. https://web.archive.org/web/20230322090345/https://patrick.georgi.family/2015/02/17/intel-boot-guard/ ↩

18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_AMT_versions ↩

19. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/90587/intel-q170-chipset/specifications.html ↩

20. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/98088/intel-q270-chipset/specifications.html ↩

21. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/133282/intel-q370-chipset/specifications.html ↩

22. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/201836/intel-q470-chipset/specifications.html ↩

23. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/processor-numbers.html ↩

24. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000058567/processors/intel-core-processors.html ↩

25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Hub_Architecture ↩

26. https://web.archive.org/web/20070630000420/http://www.openamt.org/ ↩