Espressif has announced a shiny new feature for its ESP32 microcontroller family, starting with the ESP32-C3: privilege separation, designed boost security by keeping user applications from interfering with protected applications.
“Traditionally, any ESP-IDF application on an Espressif SoCs [Systems on Chips] is built as a single monolithic firmware without any separation between the ‘core’ components (operating system, networking, etc.) and the ‘application’ or ‘business’ logic,” Espressif’s Sachin Parekh explains. “In the ESP Privilege Separation framework, we split the firmware image into two separate and independent binaries: Protected and user application.”