This is the role of Intel's LMS -- Local Manageability Service.

As I understand it from having to check for / disable the AMT vulnerability on a Linux machine and then on a Windows 10 machine:

With AMT available but unprovisioned, the LMS vulnerability can be used to invoke LMS to provision AMT. Once provisioned, AMT can then be used to exploit the system.

Intel's language that I've seen solely refers to LMS in the Windows context. Even with AMT unprovisioned, a Windows machine may well have the LMS service running.

Intel's mitigation instructions for the problem describe two steps: 1) Getting AMT unprovisioned; 2) Disabling the LMS service so that it can't be exploited to enable/provision AMT.

Step 2) is further complicated in that, in addition to LMS, there is also a "microLMS" service that is an independent substitute for LMS and can or may possibly be used in lieu of it to provision AMT and gain access. I didn't look further, yet, but the bit of description they threw at "microLMS" described it as an "open-source" LMS substitute.

Most all the language I saw around LMS described it in the Windows context. I have a somewhat vague niggling in my mind that at least somewhere, I saw a description -- maybe -- of a Linux version or driver in the kernel or whatever. Unless I'm confusing that with the Linux AMT support that is of concern.

The open ports in question with regard to this functionality appear to relate to both AMT and LMS. Even if AMT is unprovisioned, LMS may have some of those ports open and ready to communicate.

So, after I went through steps to disable AMT -- and LMS, on the Windows 10 PC -- I repeated my scan of the relevant port ranges using nmap, from another machine, to check that they weren't responding. nmap -v -a -p600-699 [ip4 address] and nmap -v -a -p16900-16999 [ip4 address] . -v for verbose, -a for aggressive (why not?), and port ranges -- the last a bit over-broad, for the sake of my aging memory...

By the way, on the Windows 10 machine I had to deal with, Intel's vulnerability scanner initially found AMT available but unprovisioned, LMS running, and microLMS not running.

After went through Steps 1) and 2), rerunning their vulnerability scanner showed AMT unprovisioned (as before) LMS not running, but now microLMS running. WTF -- why did it apparently kick in upon these changes?

The relevant ports as cited here and there in all the news about this, were all unresponsive to nmap scanning. And it was 2 am by that point.

But I'm left wondering what microLMS is up to, and whether it's listening on some other port(s).

Unfortunately, Windows 10 doesn't take well to nmap -v -a -p- [ip4 address] -- namely, expanding the former scan to encompass all ports, and starts choking the response rate. 2 am, and as I didn't want to wait who knows how long to get through that scan, I shut down the machine and left it, for the night.

Anyone else know more about microLMS... Now that I'm remembering and maybe have the energy to look into it, myself?

P.S. Since Intel's ME sits before the main processor running the OS and can intercept network packets ahead of it, from the NIC [a], you need to scan for the vulnerable ports from another device on the (local) network.

If you are somewhere where you don't have multiple PC's at hand, on an Android phone, the Termux app has nmap 7.40 in its repositories and this works just fine to perform the scan in question.

a) It is precisely those packets it intercepts and does not pass on to the OS, that are of interest.