SCALE: Side-Channel Attack Lab. Exercises (and: QSCAT, Qt Side Channel Analysis Tool)

Alongside the implementation of cryptography in hardware and software, attacks on those implementations (plus associated countermeasures) form a central challenge in cryptographic engineering. This topic is sometimes termed physical security, but, either way, it contrasts sharply with traditional cryptanalysis by targeting the concrete implementation (vs. the abstract design, i.e., the underlying theory) via techniques such as side-channel attack. Beyond the obvious motivation, there are many position statements, e.g., see [1,2,3], that outline why this challenge is important. Thus, from an educational perspective, the question is how to equip students with an appropriate, associated skill set? On one hand, it seems obvious a hands-on approach is preferable: this is an applied topic so actually doing it (assuming a background in the underlying or related theory), e.g., via Problem-Based Learning (PBL), would be most effective. Indeed, other initiatives have already used a similar approach, e.g., see [4]. However, on the other hand, our experience is that some practical and/or logistical challenges remain.[…]

https://github.com/danpage/scale

PS: From twitter thread, see-also:

https://github.com/FdLSifu/qscat

Qt Side Channel Analysis Tool to handle signal traces and more

Side-channel attacking browsers through CSS3 features

tl;dr:
We (co-)discovered a side-channel vulnerability in browser implementations of the CSS3 feature “mix-blend-mode” which allowed to leak visual content from cross-origin iframes.
We demonstrate the impact of this vulnerability by showing how visiting a malicious site was enough to de-anonymize Facebook users. In particular, exploitation allowed to leak the profile picture, username and likes of unsuspecting visitors all while requiring no additional user interaction.
This vulnerability affected major browsers like Chrome and Firefox and was disclosed responsibly.

Side-channel attacking browsers through CSS3 features