Abstract: The present invention provides a secure firmware programming technique wherein a corrupted version of the binary image code to be programmed in microcontroller devices is loaded into a modified programmer device which is adapted to receive the corrupted binary image code, transfer code sections of the corrupted binary image code to the memory of the programmed microcontroller, restore corrupted code sections of the corrupted binary image code and transfer them to the programmed microcontroller in order to restore the binary image code stored therein into its original executable state.