A Workaround To Disable Intel Management Engine 11

Many Phoronix readers have written in over the past day being excited over the prospects of being able to disable a newer version of Intel's Management Engine.

For a while there has been ME_Cleaner for stripping down Intel's ME but it's only for pre-Skylake (pre-ME11) motherboards where it can remove almost everything from ME/AMT activity.

Users are interested in disabling Intel's Management Engine over security concerns and reported vulnerabilities, among other privacy reasons.

Positive Technologies is now reporting on a discovery by one of their researches to be able to disable Intel Management Engine 11 (Skylake era) after discovering an undocumented mode.

The security researchers discovered "an undocumented PCH strap that can be used to switch on a special mode disabling the main Intel ME functionality at an early stage." Those wanting to learn more can read this blog post.