ESP8266 Community Forum

Hi Everyone,
I developed a application based on ESP8266 module, I need this application to be safe and secure in the module itself, means no other intruder should read the application, there is no support feature to enable code read protection for this module. But I found that, to read any flash memory, the bootloader and the flash memory reader should communicate, verify and then proceeds for reading the flash memory contents, Is there any way to intrude or stop this communication ?. Or Is there any way to detect this communication? so that I can erase the contents of Flash memory itself.

Since everything is in the flash memory, any 12 year-old can simply unsolder the flash and read it, so there's currently no way to protect code in the ESP8266 system.

If code security is mandatory, you'll need to select a microcontroller you can protect, and just use ESP8266 as the wifi layer (running the AT code or similar). Or select a different wifi part.

what you mean by everything is in flash memory?

The code resides in a memory chip that is external to the ESP8266. Look at the ESP-01 modules. There are two chips on it. One is the ESP8266, and the other is the flash memory chip.