The News: Intel recently announced its new lineup of their 13th Generation (Raptor Lake) Intel Core CPUs that will incorporate Intel’s latest implementation of its commercially focused vPro technology. See the full Intel vPro Press Release here.

Intel Announces vPro Platform with 13th Gen Processors

Analyst Take: Intel’s recent announcement of its vPro Platform featuring 13th gen processors is a timely move. As more commercial users work in hybrid environments, the need for stronger endpoint security is more critical than ever before since the attack surface has expanded due to the more distributed nature of remote work.

Companies are dealing with a rise in more sophisticated ransomware and malware attacks that often reverberate throughout an organization and which can affect internal associates, vendor partners, and customers. The risks are much higher today than ever before as more organizations are trying to digitally transform themselves offering more front-line employees greater access to analytics, which raises the stakes. Thus, to help organizations address these problems, hardware and software vendors are constantly innovating to do what they can to help thwart attacks.

Although not new, Intel’s integrated security platform for desktop clients called vPro has recently been updated with the latest line-up of Intel’s 13th generation Intel Core Processors. From a security perspective, the updated Intel vPro platform has the ability to reduce the attack surface by 70 percent versus personal computers from four years ago. The new Intel vPro platform offers threat prevention with many security capabilities deep in the silicon that helps reduce the attack surface.

From a segment perspective, the Intel vPro Enterprise and the Intel vPro Essentials are focused on security but targeted at different segments of the market. The Intel vPro Enterprise offers more robust features that include Intel Active Management Technology (AMT), Virtualization Technology (VT), Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT), and Identity Protection Technology (IPT).

Both vPro Enterprise and Essentials include Intel Anti-Threat Detection Technology (TDT)

Intel noted it had a first mover advantage since the vPro platform is the first to have silicon-based threat detection, differentiating it versus competitor AMD, which does not have equivalent capability.

Intel’s Threat Detection Technology is designed to work in unison with advanced security software platforms, leveraging hardware-based threat detection to enhance their ability to thwart attackers in real-time. In essence, it has the ability to detect the presence of malware by monitoring telemetry generated by the CPU as it executes, and then raise an alert when suspicious activity is detected. At this point, the security software takes over to eliminate the threat. Another key feature of Intel’s vPro 13th Gen Core is the ability to remotely access systems from anywhere in the world using its Active Management Technology.

Key vertical markets that are ideal for vPro are retail, banking, hospitality, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and others that must deal with government mandates designed to protect customer or patient data along with those that are being targeted for economic espionage and ransomware among others.

Intel’s new line-up of their 13th Generation (Raptor Lake) Intel Core CPUs with Intel vPro Enterprise & vPro Essentials should continue to resonate with large and small organizations due to its excellent security and remote management features. With organizations being highly distributed today, attack vectors have widened, and employees need better assurance they are protected.

Essentials include the Intel Anti-Theft Technology (ATT).

Intel noted it had a first mover advantage since the vPro platform is the first to have silicon-based artificial intelligence threat detection that is available on Windows, which is different than AMD Ryzen Pro where it also has security embedded but does not have artificial intelligence-based threat detection.

With Intel’s Threat Detection Technology, it is designed to work in unison with anti-virus and the operating system to help thwart real-time threats leveraging its anomalous behavior detection. In essence, it has the ability to monitor the application for nuances that would indicate it is being compromised. Anomalous behavior detection leverages execution control flow tracking within the central processing units’ cores to build a dynamic AI model consistent with behaviors exhibited by numerous threats and exploits. Another key feature of Intel’s vPro 13th Gen Core is the ability to remotely access systems from anywhere in the world using its Active Management Technology.

Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum Research as a whole.