Patent ID: 7308547

Claim:
A method of protecting memory locations associated with an embedded system, the method comprising: starting a state machine having at least a change state and a normal state; upon starting the state machine, entering the change state when an indication is present that data needs to be persisted to protected memory locations, otherwise entering the normal state; in both the change state and the normal state, starting a write filter that intercepts writes to the protected memory locations and stores the writes in a write cache; in the normal state, i) identifying requests for critical writes to the protected memory locations, ii) describing the critical writes in at least one update file stored in unprotected memory locations, but not persisting the critical writes to the protected memory locations, and iii) setting the indication that data needs to be persisted to the protected memory locations; in the change state, causing the critical writes described in the at least one update file to be persisted to the protected memory locations, and initiating a reboot of the embedded system; and before re-entering the change state or the normal state, rebooting the embedded system.