14 DAY TRIAL // With Sandy Bridge release date rapidly approaching, more and more details about Intel's upcoming processor series come into the open, a senior Intel executive recently stating that these new CPUs will feature a remote kill switch that enables users to remotely shut-down their laptop if this is lost or stolen.
This disclosure was made during an interview held by the itbusiness.ca publication with Intel's North America Director of Distribution Sales David Allen.
“As we go forward into 2011, Sandy Bridge will deliver the security, connectivity and performance options that businesses need and we'll rely on our channel to help deliver this to the SMB market,” the company's representative said.
Although the details surrounding this feature are rather sketchy at this time, the TechSpot website stipulates that this function can be triggered even if the computer has no Internet connection or if it's shut down since the “kill switch” is activated over a 3G network.
How this is going to work in computers that don't carry such connectivity options wasn't elaborated on, but the isc.sans.edu website did provide us with some addition insight into the inner workings of this so-called “kill switch.”
According to their findings, this feature seems to only be associated with Intel vPro processors that come with 3G hardware as well as with special chipset and BIOS support.
In addition, the actions of this switch can be reversed by providing the proper authentication through a 3G heartbeat, a local passphrase or one-time token, the computer returning to its previous state without any physical damage.
This new feature will be part of Intel's Anti-Theft 3.0 technology, its previous version being used right now in all of Intel's Core i5 and Intel Core i7 vPro processors and compatible chipsets in order to provide improved data security.