Protection of a microcontroller

1. A method for protecting at least one section of a program executed by a microcontroller, comprising:

before execution of the at least one section, decrementing or incrementing at least one counter and storing a state of the at least one counter in a non-volatile memory of the microcontroller;

when an attack attempt is detected by the microcontroller, activating a flag in a RAM of the microcontroller, wherein the activation of the flag in the RAM is not detectable by an attacker performing the attack attempt;

at the end of the execution of the at least one section, checking a state of the flag;

if the state of the flag is active, executing an action against the attack attempt; and

if the state of the flag is not active:

if the at least one counter was decremented, incrementing the at least one counter; and

if the at least one counter was incremented, decrementing the at least one counter.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the state of the first counter is checked against a first threshold before execution of said section to implement a protection reaction in case the threshold is exceeded.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said checking is also performed before providing information at the microcontroller input/output.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein said first threshold is set to a value randomly selected from a range.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein a second counter is decremented or incremented if flag is, at the end of the program section, not activated.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the second counter is tested against a second threshold before execution of the program section.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the second counter is incremented at the end of the execution of said program section.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein an initial state of the first counter is set to a value randomly selected from a range.

9. A microcontroller for executing a program comprising at least one program section, the microcontroller comprising:

a central unit;

a random access memory (RAM);

an input/output port; and

a non-volatile memory, wherein at least one area of the non-volatile memory is intended for storage of a state of at least one counter for implementation of a method for protecting the at least one program section, the method comprising:

before execution of the at least one program section, decrementing or incrementing the at least one counter and storing the state of the at least one counter in the non-volatile memory;

when an attack attempt is detected by the microcontroller, activating a flag in the RAM, wherein the activation of the flag in the RAM is not detectable by an attacker performing the attack attempt;

at the end of the execution of the at least one program section, checking a state of the flag;

if the state of the flag is active, executing an action against the attack attempt; and

if the state of the flag is not active:

if the at least one counter was decremented, incrementing the at least one counter; and

if the at least one counter was incremented, decrementing the at least one counter.

10. The microcontroller of claim 9 , wherein the state of the first counter is checked against a first threshold before execution of the at least one program section to implement a protection reaction if the first threshold is exceeded.

11. The microcontroller of claim 10 , wherein the checking is also performed before providing information at a microcontroller input/output.

12. The microcontroller of claim 11 , wherein the first threshold is set to a value randomly selected from a range.

13. The microcontroller of claim 9 , wherein a second counter is decremented or incremented if, at the end of the at least one program section, the flag is not active.

14. The microcontroller of claim 13 , wherein the second counter is tested against a second threshold before execution of the at least one program section.

15. The microcontroller of claim 13 , wherein the second counter is incremented at the end of the execution of the at least one program section.

16. The microcontroller of claim 9 , wherein an initial state of the first counter is set to a value randomly selected from a range.