Protect firmware updates.

[JAlca]

Hi all!,

In the case of a commercial device, who need periodic firmaware updates, is there a way to protect those updates in order to avoid for being copied and cloned?

Someone can point me to a read about it?

[Ozone]

For one thing, STM32 MCUs have a readout protection feature, which is reasonably safe against occasional hackers.

You could encrypt the update packages as well.

No method in this (MCU) price range will be fully safe against professional attackers with a 7+ digits budget.

And, you have to take the increased development time and costs into account, and balance it against the expected product lifetime.

[Jack Peacock_2]

ARM is beginning to address this issue in hardware, starting with the M23/M33 core and TrustZone. You might want to look at the M33 architecture and the STM32L5 series if you need secure updates.

Jack Peacock

[Tesla DeLorean]

Places with million dollar budgets usually have a deeper talent roster. I suspect you can find people who'll pull firmware for a few thousand.

Topics to review might be compression, encryption, elliptical curve based signing, etc.

You'd perhaps want to tie the firmware to the unique ID of the STM32