Abstract When in 1965 the British MI5 placed a microphone in the Egyptian embassy to listen to the clicks emitted by the internal rotors in their mechanical encrypting machine, a new foe to IT systems was born: side-channel attacks (SCAs). This attacking methodology takes advantage of physical measurements such as sound, time or power consumption, leaked from security systems, in order to disclose their secrets. Since that distant first successful attempt by James Bond’s colleagues, SCAs have become more and more sophisticated, targeting a wide range of security systems. Among them, over the last two decades, different works have analysed the vulnerabilities of biometric systems to these attacks. In spite of this few pioneering studies, compared to other technologies, the analysis of SCAs in biometrics is still in its infancy. The current article is an attempt to draw the attention of the community towards this potential threat by: placing SCAs within the overall context of biometric vulnerabilities, reviewing the state of the art, presenting possible countermeasures against them, and providing a quick look into the future regarding the challenges to be faced by biometrics to effectively confront this new adversary.

中文翻译：

---

生物识别的新敌人：对侧信道攻击的叙述性评论

摘要 1965 年，英国军情五处在埃及大使馆放置了一个麦克风，以听取其机械加密机内部转子发出的咔嗒声，IT 系统的新敌人诞生了：旁道攻击 (SCA)。这种攻击方法利用从安全系统泄漏的物理测量值（例如声音、时间或功耗）来泄露其秘密。自从 James Bond 的同事首次成功尝试之后，SCA 变得越来越复杂，针对广泛的安全系统。其中，在过去的二十年里，不同的工作分析了生物识别系统对这些攻击的脆弱性。尽管有这几项开创性研究，但与其他技术相比，生物识别学中 SCA 的分析仍处于起步阶段。