Intel Active Management Technology

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Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) is hardware and firmware for remote out-of-band management of select business computers,^[1][2] running on the Intel Management Engine, a microprocessor subsystem not exposed to the user, intended for monitoring, maintenance, updating, and repairing systems.^[1] Out-of-band (OOB) or hardware-based management is different from software-based (or in-band) management and software management agents.^[1]

Hardware-based management works at a different level from software applications and uses a communication channel (through the TCP/IP stack) that is different from software-based communication (which is through the software stack in the operating system). Hardware-based management does not depend on the presence of an OS or a locally installed management agent. Hardware-based management has been available on Intel/AMD-based computers in the past, but it has largely been limited to auto-configuration using DHCP or BOOTP for dynamic IP address allocation and diskless workstations, as well as wake-on-LAN (WOL) for remotely powering on systems.^[3] AMT is not intended to be used by itself; it is intended to be used alongside a software management application.^[1] It gives a management application (and thus, the system administrator who uses it) access to the PC down the wire, to remotely do tasks that are difficult or sometimes impossible when working on a PC that does not have remote functionalities built into it.^[1][4][5]

AMT is designed into a service processor located on the motherboard and uses TLS-secured communication and strong encryption to provide additional security.^[6] AMT is built into PCs with Intel vPro technology and is based on the Intel Management Engine (ME).^[6] AMT has moved towards increasing support for DMTF Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) standards and AMT Release 5.1 and later releases are an implementation of DASH version 1.0/1.1 standards for out-of-band management.^[7] AMT provides similar functionality to IPMI, although AMT is designed for client computing systems as compared with the typically server-based IPMI.

Currently, AMT is available in desktops, servers, ultrabooks, tablets, and laptops with Intel Core vPro processor family, including Intel Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, and Intel Xeon E3-1000, Xeon E, Xeon W-1000 product family.^[1][8][9] AMT also requires an Intel networking card and the corporate version of the Intel Management Engine binary.^[10]

Intel confirmed a Remote Elevation of Privilege bug (CVE-2017-5689, SA-00075) in its Management Technology on May 1, 2017.^[11] Every Intel platform with either Intel Standard Manageability, Active Management Technology, or Small Business Technology, from Nehalem in 2008 to Kaby Lake in 2017 has a remotely exploitable security hole in the ME.^[12][13] Some manufacturers, like Purism^[14] and System76^[15] are already selling hardware with Intel Management Engine disabled to prevent the remote exploit. Additional major security flaws in the ME affecting a very large number of computers incorporating Management Engine, Trusted Execution Engine, and Server Platform Services firmware, from Skylake in 2015 to Coffee Lake in 2017, were confirmed by Intel on November 20, 2017 (SA-00086).