Instruction Counting Side Channel Analysis Cheese

A Python script inspired by https://github.com/ChrisTheCoolHut/PinCTF and the like.

It provides easy to use methods of side-channel analysis of binaries by counting instructions. It offers three backends: perf, pin and qemu. pin uses the Intel PIN framework and gives very exact but very slow results. For most binaries the small inaccuracies of perf will not have an effect on the result. qemu is often the best of two worlds with much better performance than pin and very exact results.

Example:

Just the Check Please from PlaidCTF 2023

python3 -m icscac --arg --brute-length -- ./icscac/examples/check @@

length=0 inscount=255635
length=1 inscount=255685
length=2 inscount=255365
...
length=15 inscount=255413
length=16 inscount=30191787
length=17 inscount=255486
...
length=31 inscount=255880
most_instrs=30191787 best_length=16

python3 -m icscac --arg --brute-all -l 16 -- ./icscac/examples/check @@

instr_count=30191457 '0AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'
instr_count=30191346 '1AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'
instr_count=30192062 '2AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'
...
instr_count=40089999 'wat3rT1ghT-bl}z3'
instr_count=40090186 'wat3rT1ghT-bl~z3'

best_idx=13 best_char='A'
found input wat3rT1ghT-blAz3