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CERT Coordination Center

Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) does not properly enforce access control

Vulnerability Note VU#491375

Original Release Date: 2017-05-02 | Last Revised: 2017-12-21

Overview

Technologies based on Intel Active Management Technology may be vulnerable to remote privilege escalation, which may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system.

Description

CWE-284: Improper Access Control - CVE-2017-5689

Intel offers a number of hardware-based remote management technologies meant for maintenance of computer systems. These technologies include Intel® Active Management Technology (AMT), Intel® Small Business Technology (SBT), and Intel® Standard Manageability, and the Intel Management Engine.

These technologies listen for remote commands on several known ports. Intel's documentation provides that ports 16992 and 16993 allow web GUI interaction with AMT. Other ports that may be used by AMT include 16994 and 16995, and 623 and 664.

The Intel Management Engine that supports these technologies is vulnerable to a privilege escalation that allows an unauthenticated attacker to gain access to the remote management features provided by the Intel Management Engine. Intel has released a security advisory as well as a mitigation guide with more details.

It is currently not clear how many devices or computers are shipped with Intel remote management technologies enabled by default. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) selling devices containing Intel products may enable remote management features by default on a model or BIOS/UEFI version basis. The CERT/CC is reaching out to OEMs to determine which if any models may be vulnerable by default. Intel's security advisory at present suggests consumer personal computers are unaffected by default. The "Vendor Information" section below contains more information.

Impact

A remote, unauthenticated attacker may be able to gain access to the remote management features of the system. The execution occurs at a hardware system level regardless of operating system environment and configuration.

Solution

Apply a firmware update

Intel has released updated firmware for all affected hardware generations. For the complete list of the updated firmware version for each generation of hardware, please see Intel's advisory and check with your hardware vendor for a customized firmware update for your product.

Intel has also provided a mitigation guide for affected customers that do not have a firmware update available from an OEM.

Vendor Information

491375
 

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CVSS Metrics

Group Score Vector
Base 9.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Temporal 7.3 E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C
Environmental 5.5 CDP:ND/TD:M/CR:ND/IR:ND/AR:ND

References

Acknowledgements

Intel thanks Maksim Malyutin from Embedi for reporting this issue and coordinating with Intel.

This document was written by Garret Wassermann.

Other Information

CVE IDs: CVE-2017-5689
Date Public: 2017-05-01
Date First Published: 2017-05-02
Date Last Updated: 2017-12-21 18:17 UTC
Document Revision: 83

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