Side channel attacks are an increasingly relevant hardware security threat to modern computing systems and embedded systems. While gamification has proven effective for cybersecurity education, existing tools for side-channel analysis are either inaccessible to undergraduate students, limited to non-interactive formats such as board games and questionnaires or designed for competitive play like Capture the Flag games rather than structured learning. The goal of this thesis is to design, develop a gamified interactive education tool, and evaluate whether this project can improve student understanding of thermal side-channel attack concepts by making them more accessible and understandable. Toward this end, we created a Unity-based educational game designed to teach thermal side-channel attack concepts through interactive visualization. The project comprises two game modes: one that teaches passive side channel analysis on a simplified Central Processing Unit pipeline by visualizing heat patterns across instruction execution phases, and another that introduces thermal analysis of memory access patterns through a heatmap-guided search for a hidden cryptographic key. Both game modes feature progressive difficulty supporting incremental learning. The game is deployed as a WebGL application for browser-based access and was evaluated through a classroom survey consisting of Computer Science students. Preliminary design feedback and evaluated survey outcomes suggest that the game can make side-channel concepts more accessible to students across various technical backgrounds.
- Learning thermal side channel attacks through gamification
- Jaswanth Chithu Sudharsan
- 0009-0008-3159-766X
- Gokhan Kul (Advisor) - University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Department of Computer and Information ScienceClinton Louis Rogers (Committee Member) - University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Department of Computer and Information ScienceDebarun Das (Committee Member) - University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Department of Computer and Information Science
- x, 47 pages
- color illustrations
- List of figures -- List of tables -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Overview of side-channel attacks -- Thermal behavior and processor activity -- Memory, cache and microarchitectural leakage -- Cybersecurity education and gamification -- Existing side-channel education and tools -- Research gap and motivation -- Chapter 3. Methodology -- Overview of the methodology -- Existing body of work and its impact -- Comparison of existing state-of-the-art -- Our contribution -- Evaluation and quantification of the learning experience -- Chapter 4. Dataset -- Purpose of collecting this dataset -- Survey structure -- Chapter 5. Results -- Section A: Background information -- Section B: Prior familiarity and confidence -- Section C: Gameplay experience -- Section D: Learning outcomes -- Section E: Open-ended feedback -- Correlation analysis of learning outcomes -- Further correlation analysis of pre and post activity understanding -- WebGL deployment performance during the activity -- Chapter 6. Discussions -- Chapter 7. Conclusion -- References.
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 44-46).
- University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
- Master of Science (MS)
- Computer Science
- Department of Computer and Information Science
- English
- Thesis
- Copyright 2026 Jaswanth Chithu Sudharsan
- https://doi.org/10.62791/20627
- 9914552289501301