Intel ME Manufacturing Mode is intended for configuration and testing of the end platform during manufacturing, and as such should be disabled (closed) before sale and shipment to users.

This mode allows configuring critical platform settings stored in one-time-programmable memory (FUSEs). These settings include those for BootGuard (the mode, policy, and hash for the digital signing key for the ACM and UEFI modules). Some of them are referred to as FPFs (Field Programmable Fuses).

We analyzed several platforms from a number of manufacturers, including Lenovo and Apple MacBook Prо laptops. The Yoga and ThinkPad computers we examined did NOT have any issues related to Manufacturing Mode. But we found that Apple laptops on Intel chipsets are running in Manufacturing Mode. After this information was reported to Apple, the vulnerability (CVE-2018-4251) was patched in macOS High Sierra update 10.13.5.

source: HN