As far as regular CPUs go, it’s not a rumour. Any AMD or Intel CPU made in the last 15 years can be remotely disabled via the network, even if the device is turned off (but connected to power).
I don’t know how it behaves on ARM (so Apple’s SOCs or your phone) but on Intel or AMD there are two manifestations:
They can intercept data and manipulate memory, and that’s pretty much transparent, you wouldn’t know unless you were a very advanced user running specific tests.
Or they can literally just brick the chip. It blows a few electronic fuses and corrupts it’s own firmware, you press the button to turn on the device and it doesn’t respond and will never respond again. Those fuses are permanent, once bricked its gone.
As far as regular CPUs go, it’s not a rumour. Any AMD or Intel CPU made in the last 15 years can be remotely disabled via the network, even if the device is turned off (but connected to power).
Do you know how that manifests? Like if they killswitched it remotely, how would it stop working do we know?
I don’t know how it behaves on ARM (so Apple’s SOCs or your phone) but on Intel or AMD there are two manifestations:
They can intercept data and manipulate memory, and that’s pretty much transparent, you wouldn’t know unless you were a very advanced user running specific tests.
Or they can literally just brick the chip. It blows a few electronic fuses and corrupts it’s own firmware, you press the button to turn on the device and it doesn’t respond and will never respond again. Those fuses are permanent, once bricked its gone.