The security researcher, LimitedResults, coordinated disclosure with Espressif on their advisory and details of the exploit. The attack works against eFuse, a one-time programmable memory where data can be burned to the device.
By burning a payload into the device’s eFuse, no software update can ever reset the fuse and the chip must be physically replaced or the device discarded. A key risk is that the attack does not fully replace the firmware, so the device may appear to work as normal.
Why does a random esp32 chip need efuses in the first place??
I mostly understand how these fuses prevent say downgrading firmware, but could t a Chinese firm looking to clone one of these also just clone the number of blow. Fuses equally trivially if the goal is just an also working device with stock firmware?