This has been around for ages. Like core 2 duo and is featured on business class/enterprise class hardware. Is not commonly found on home/low end machines you buy at best buy or any box store.
This technology is also found in Servers as well, HP has iLo, integrated lights out and allows remote administration of machines, just like you were sitting at the machine. And Dell has iDrac, similar to HP’s iLo. These systems are computers that reside on the motherboard, have their own firmware and operating systems and you can use them even with the machine “powered off” you can even remotely reload the operating or secure erase the hard drive arrays.
Powerful stuff but nothing new and generally doesn’t affect home users.
Thank you for the updated info. I had never heard of this before and so your input is much appreciate. :)
I would gather I am not the only one who had no idea that the basic hardware some of us had come to rely upon had such Siliconware Ghostcontrollers so prevalent on chips we had come to rely upon...
Not “welcome” news, by any stretch of the imagination...
iLO and iDRAC are discrete subsystems with dedicated network and chipsets. You can leave the port on the chassis unplugged and its relatively harmless. It’s also configurable in the BIOS. vPRo chipsets are built into the main die and can be called even if the BIOS has it turned off. That was the advantage with it when Intel first pimped it to businesses: users can’t turn it off and neither can the bad guys! Heh
But yes, you are correct that it’s relegated to the business platforms.