Embedded systems are increasingly numerous, complex and connected, and are used in critical environments such as healthcare systems and industrial systems. The security of embedded systems is essential to ensure the proper functioning of these applications. Conventional security mechanisms often rely on human intervention, which can be impractical or ineffective in real-time scenarios. Autonomous recovery mechanisms, which can mitigate, repair and respond to security attacks without human intervention, offer a promising approach to improve the security of embedded systems. This article presents a state of the art of autonomous recovery and response for the security of embedded devices after the detection of an undesirable event with consideration of their critical functions.