Mark Ermolov
More info
- Employer
- Positive Technologies
- Known for
- Intel ME research, the HAP bit, Red Unlock
Russian hardware researcher who, with Maxim Goryachy, took Intel's Management Engine apart piece by piece, right down to the key that protects the CPU's microcode.
The Intel Management Engine is a separate processor in the chipset running its own operating system — from version 11, a flavour of MINIX — with access to everything while the main CPU remains none the wiser. In 2017 Ermolov and Goryachy at Positive Technologies found an undocumented bit, tied to the US government's High Assurance Platform programme, that switches ME off after boot. Later that year at Black Hat Europe they showed ME being taken over and debugged via JTAG through an ordinary USB port.
In 2020 came a flaw in the CSME boot ROM that cannot be patched, because it lives in silicon. With Dmitry Sklyarov they then unlocked Atom processors into an internal debug mode and extracted the key that encrypts Intel's microcode updates.