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Security
This guide provides an overview of the overall security features available in various Espressif solutions. It is highly recommended to consider this guide while designing the products with the Espressif platform and the ESP-IDF software stack from the security perspective.
Goals
High level security goals are as follows:
Preventing untrustworthy code from being executed
Protecting the identity and integrity of the code stored in the off-chip flash memory
Securing device identity
Secure storage for confidential data
Authenticated and encrypted communication from the device
Platform Security
Secure Boot
The Secure Boot feature ensures that only authenticated software can execute on the device. The Secure Boot process forms a chain of trust by verifying all mutable software entities involved in the Application Startup Flow. Signature verification happens during both boot-up as well as in OTA updates.
Please refer to Secure Boot V2 for detailed documentation about this feature.
Important
It is highly recommended that Secure Boot be enabled on all production devices.
Secure Boot Best Practices
Generate the signing key on a system with a quality source of entropy.
Always keep the signing key private. A leak of this key will compromise the Secure Boot system.
Do not allow any third party to observe any aspects of the key generation or signing process using
espsecure.py. Both processes are vulnerable to timing or other side-channel attacks.Ensure that all security eFuses have been correctly programmed, including disabling of the debug interfaces, non-required boot mediums (e.g., UART DL mode), etc.
Flash Encryption
The Flash Encryption feature helps to encrypt the contents on the off-chip flash memory and thus provides the confidentiality aspect to the software or data stored in the flash memory.
Please refer to Flash Encryption for detailed information about this feature.
Flash Encryption Best Practices
It is recommended to use flash Encryption release mode for the production use-cases.
It is recommended to have a unique flash encryption key per device.
Enable Secure Boot as an extra layer of protection, and to prevent an attacker from selectively corrupting any part of the flash before boot.
Memory Protection
ESP32-C5 supports the Memory Protection scheme, either through architecture or special peripheral like PMS, which provides an ability to enforce and monitor permission attributes to memory and, in some cases, peripherals. ESP-IDF application startup code configures the permissions attributes like Read/Write access on data memories and Read/Execute access on instruction memories using the relevant peripheral. If there is any attempt made that breaks these permission attributes, e.g., a write operation to instruction memory region, then a violation interrupt is raised, and it results in system panic.
This feature depends on the config option CONFIG_ESP_SYSTEM_MEMPROT_FEATURE and it is kept enabled by default. Please note that the API for this feature is private and used exclusively by ESP-IDF code only.
Note
This feature can help to prevent the possibility of remote code injection due to the existing vulnerabilities in the software.
Debug Interfaces
JTAG
JTAG interface stays disabled if any of the security features are enabled. Please refer to JTAG with Flash Encryption or Secure Boot for more information.
JTAG interface can also be disabled in the absence of any other security features using eFuse API.
UART Download Mode
In ESP32-C5, Secure UART Download mode gets activated if any of the security features are enabled.
Secure UART Download mode can also be enabled by calling
esp_efuse_enable_rom_secure_download_mode().This mode does not allow any arbitrary code to execute if downloaded through the UART download mode.
It also limits the available commands in Download mode to update SPI config, e.g., changing baud rate, basic flash write, and the command to return a summary of currently enabled security features (
get_security_info).To disable Download Mode entirely, select the CONFIG_SECURE_UART_ROM_DL_MODE to the recommended option
Permanently disable ROM Download Modeor callesp_efuse_disable_rom_download_mode()at runtime.
Important
In Secure UART Download mode, esptool.py can only work with the argument --no-stub.
Product Security
Secure OTA (Over-the-air) Updates
OTA Updates must happen over secure transport, e.g., HTTPS.
ESP-IDF provides a simplified abstraction layer ESP HTTPS OTA for this.
If Secure Boot is enabled, then the server should host the signed application image.
If Flash Encryption is enabled, then no additional steps are required on the server side, encryption shall be taken care on the device itself during flash write.
OTA update Rollback Process can help to switch the application as
activeonly after its functionality has been verified.
Anti-Rollback Protection
Anti-rollback protection feature ensures that device only executes the application that meets the security version criteria as stored in its eFuse. So even though the application is trusted and signed by legitimate key, it may contain some revoked security feature or credential. Hence, device must reject any such application.
ESP-IDF allows this feature for the application only and it is managed through 2nd stage bootloader. The security version is stored in the device eFuse and it is compared against the application image header during both bootup and over-the-air updates.
Please see more information to enable this feature in the Anti-rollback guide.
Encrypted Firmware Distribution
Encrypted firmware distribution during over-the-air updates ensures that the application stays encrypted in transit from the server to the the device. This can act as an additional layer of protection on top of the TLS communication during OTA updates and protect the identity of the application.
Please see working example for this documented in OTA Upgrades with Pre-Encrypted Firmware section.
Secure Storage
Secure storage refers to the application-specific data that can be stored in a secure manner on the device, i.e., off-chip flash memory. This is typically a read-write flash partition and holds device specific configuration data, e.g., Wi-Fi credentials.
ESP-IDF provides the NVS (Non-volatile Storage) management component which allows encrypted data partitions. This feature is tied with the platform Flash Encryption feature described earlier.
Please refer to the NVS Encryption for detailed documentation on the working and instructions to enable this feature.
Important
By default, ESP-IDF components writes the device specific data into the default NVS partition, including Wi-Fi credentials too, and it is recommended to protect this data using NVS Encryption feature.
Secure Device Control
ESP-IDF provides capability to control an ESP device over Wi-Fi/Ethernet + HTTP or BLE in a secure manner using ESP Local Control component.
Please refer to the ESP Local Control for detailed documentation about this feature.
Security Policy
The ESP-IDF GitHub repository has attached Security Policy Brief.
Advisories
Espressif publishes critical Security Advisories, which includes security advisories regarding both hardware and software.
The specific advisories of the ESP-IDF software components are published through the GitHub repository.
Software Updates
Critical security issues in the ESP-IDF components, and third-party libraries are fixed as and when we find them or when they are reported to us. Gradually, we make the fixes available in all applicable release branches in ESP-IDF.
Applicable security issues and CVEs for the ESP-IDF components, third-party libraries are mentioned in the ESP-IDF release notes.
Important
We recommend periodically updating to the latest bugfix version of the ESP-IDF release to have all critical security fixes available.