Part 2/5:

At the heart of this vulnerability lies the concept of side-channel attacks. These attacks exploit the implementation details of a system, rather than the intended functionality. A classic example is a password-checking algorithm that takes longer to process an incorrect password than a correct one. This timing difference can be used to deduce the correct password, even though the algorithm itself is functioning as intended.

In the context of computers, this side-channel attack principle applies to the way they utilize cache memory. Cache is a high-speed memory layer that sits between the CPU and the slower main memory (RAM). When a process accesses a memory address, it may first find the data in the cache, resulting in a "cache hit," or it may need to fetch the data from main memory, resulting in a "cache miss." The time it takes to access the data can reveal information about the memory access patterns of other processes, leading to potential security vulnerabilities

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