I am sorry if the question might be naive, i am not in IT. I see that OPNsense is recommended as a router software here. I was thinking if it is safe if i install it on a mini PC since the pc will be facing the open internet. Won’t that expose my bios/intel AMT to direct access from the internet? Won’t this make my mini pc easier to hack? Please help me understand the risks compared to a normal router hardware.
Does it have a vPro CPU? If not the risk is quite low.
Can you elaborate on that a bit? I thought the vPro was for encrypted RAM and thus offer an overall safer experience.
vPro branded processors would have Intel AMT, which is what would expose your hardware to the network, which is what the OP was talking about.
Which is usually deactivated by default and if not, can be deactivated. No reason not to pick vPro.