[jsudhams]

So it does affect only Desktop workload right? Because on servers as long as we use virtuals we should be good. Am i right?

[turblety]

No. Basically the Intel ME is a completely separate ARM processor that's physically stuck onto each Intel Processor. It has direct access to everything the Intel chip does. The memory it's allocating, the hardware commands (ie keyboard, mouse, display), the software running, the processes running. This all happens at a higher level than the actual Intel processor and you have no control over it at all.

Basically whatever you run at any level on your Intel chip can be monitored by the Intel ME chip, no matter how many VM's, operating systems, encrypted files/processes you have installed/are using.

[Narishma]

It's not an ARM processor in the case of Intel.