Intel boosts security with vPro chipsets

By Janet Harris

Intel Corp’s 2007 line of vPro business desktop chipsets, codenamed ‘Weybridge’, place the emphasis on security and energy efficiency.

The new chipsets feature network firewall capabilities, and introduce the memory protection capabilities of the Trusted Execution Technology (TET) codenamed “LaGrande”. The upgrade includes an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and adds support for industry management standards. 

TET is a virtualisation technology built on top of a Trusted Platform Module, which protects software applications from being exploited by malware after they are installed.

The technology provides memory partitions, so that an application can be launched into its own area, inaccessible to other software or hardware. This protects it from malicious attacks.

Updates to Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) in the 2007 vPro bundle will enable network firewalling and network access control to be carried out in the hardware.

AMT filters outbound traffic from a system, and if an excessive number of new connection attempts from a single port or a group of ports are detected it isolates the desktop’s operating system by stopping all communications with other systems and applications on the network, while maintaining communications with the IT department’s management console. This prevents a virus that has reproduced itself in an infected machine from spreading on the network.

The vPro chipsets will be distributed in the second of 2007.