Intel has admitted that its in-chip Intel Management Engine program has major security holes prompting some PC vendors to disable the Management Engine by default to protect their customers.

ZDNet saved us the trouble with a spot on explanation of what this Intel Management Engine is:

Hidden inside your Intel-based computer is a mystery program called Management Engine (ME). It, along with Trusted Execution Engine (TXE) and Server Platform Services (SPS), can be used to remotely manage your computer. We know little about Intel ME, except it's based on the Minix operating system and, oh yes, ME is very insecure.

So far, three computers vendors -- Linux-specific OEMs System76, Purism and Dell -- have decided to offer computers with disabled ME. We expect this list to grow enormously by the end of the month.