[coreboot] Intel NIC security

[Taiidan at gmx.com]

Is it worth figuring out how to externally re-flash grey market "intel" 
nics - or is the onboard NVM flash unable to do anything too terrible? 
In the newer (the 3 digit i/x series like i350, x540 etc) nics intel has 
added a "security" flash write protect feature so I imagine their flash 
stuff isn't as potentially innocent as in the older chips. If so does 
anyone how to do this?

How is this dealt with from a coreboot onboard NIC perspective?

Obvious stuff applies, such as a general NIC exploit leading to a 
WAN>LAN pivot bypassing IOMMU if both WAN and LAN are processed on the 
same chip but that isn't what I am referring to.

You may find this interesting:
https://www.servethehome.com/investigating-fake-intel-i350-network-adapters/

When this news first came out there was a conspiracy theory started on 
the pfsense forums and a lot of smart people bought in to the idea that 
they were some kind of foreign intelligence agency scheme to spy on 
american companies (I myself know a few important corps that use DIY 
routers, so it could be true)