# Overview

## Welcome to GE Wars: The Deep Learning SCA battle!&#x20;

This challenge is a deep learning-based side-channel analysis contest hosted by [PACE@TL](https://pace-tl-ntu.github.io/) from Nanyang Technological University. This is part of the [CHES 2025 challenge](https://ches.iacr.org/2025/challenge.php).&#x20;

Since 2015, CHES has hosted annual crypto-engineering challenges pushing the boundaries of applied cryptographic research. The 2025 edition introduces a new Deep Learning Side-Channel Analysis (DL-SCA) challenge targeting a real-world AES implementation! Think your model can recover secret keys from noisy electromagnetic traces? Want to benchmark your DL-SCA techniques against the community? This challenge is for you!<br>

The CHES 2025 SCA Challenge focuses on profiled attacks (template or deep learning-based) against an unprotected AES-C implementation running on a Raspberry Pi 4B. This introduces jitter and noise, raising the bar for traditional attack strategies and inviting novel DL-based solutions.<br>

As in previous challenges, participants can join in the following way:<br>

* Attackers develop models to extract the secret key using fewer traces than the provided baseline.

The challenge runs from **June 15 to August 15, 2025** and includes:<br>

* A provided EM trace dataset (500K profiling, 100K attack traces)
* A shared task: Recovering one AES S-box output byte with minimal traces (using Guessing Entropy)
* Continuous public leaderboard
* Final results and possible **Rump Session spotlight at CHES 2025**

Winners **earn recognition in the community**—and **cash award.**

### Winners

Thank you everyone who participated! We have concluded the challenges!\
Congrats to the winners:&#x20;

1. **Team MarsVisitor:** \
   Xingyu Xie, Yingte Xu, Zhiyuan Zhang (Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Germany)\
   [Code](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GNTm-ipJb7I1Y4oByJkOvwhTBAi47wbF/view?usp=drive_link), [Video](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kQ9qIMOB8WB2FNrt2JwTZ47NuDB3mz0X/view?usp=drive_link), [PDF](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uNdVp0gBT9I7BM14TF8kTmkKj-EQ7qaL/view?usp=drive_link), [Github](https://github.com/LucianoXu/CHES2025-Challenge)
2. **Team transit method:** \
   Aron Gohr (Independent Researcher), Friederike Laus (BSI, Germany)\
   [Code](https://drive.google.com/file/d/11qAdUJ6HjNrCm9Vw8PGa6y4Z3_p4CB6K/view?usp=drive_link), [Video](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17tVlD8698BAeE3b6MhdngChuj49iZHPc/view?usp=drive_link), [Slides](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o91ivGTqkVDoVzxxrLO2rJHkV_bCgoRB/view?usp=drive_link)
3. **Team Kaito Leak**:\
   Xin Zhang, Xiaolei Shi, Qingni Shen, Yuhui Zhang, Chang Liu (Peking University, China) \
   [Code](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UmSjuALnDwxKe9PHT4aixMD9gQ_Bd1G1/view?usp=drive_link), [Video](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P_QeIm-8LW6VepWIvKOU4QXlogNKQcQa/view?usp=drive_link)

The ppt slides used during the Rump Session at CHES 2025 can be found here: [pptx](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11AEQ4v9ZrFMCpTYA6DnKp_Ak4JG9fXB-/edit?usp=drive_link\&ouid=118383905112624015155\&rtpof=true\&sd=true).

### Datasets

The datasets are now made available at the following links: [public dataset](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JGbphwZXQvN_tEhpBIbQ-q-pN9wkqKQ-?usp=sharing)  and [private dataset](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1foaYhR_40_s17vmOdEv0dhKFVB09qksc?usp=drive_link).

### Citation

If our dataset contributed to your research, please acknowledge it with the following citation:

```
@misc{ge_wars2025,
author = {Shivam Bhasin and Harishma Boyapally and Dirmanto Jap and Trevor Yap and Qianmei Wu.},
title = {{GE Wars: The Deep Learning SCA battle}},
howpublished    = {CHES Challenge 2025},
year      = {2025},
note = {https://pace-tl.gitbook.io/ches-challenge-2025}
}
```

{% hint style="info" %}
The contributors involved in this project are Shivam Bhasin, Harishma Boyapally, Dirmanto Jap, Trevor Yap and Qianmei Wu.<br>
{% endhint %}
