Computer caches are small, fast memories that hold copies of data from larger, slower memory to improve performance. Modern CPUs contain similar structures called 'covert caches'—such as translation lookaside buffers, branch target buffers, and prefetcher tables—that hold derived or predictive data rather than faithful memory copies, and some have become security vulnerabilities exploitable by adversaries to extract secrets.
Security researcher Paulos Yibelo defends claims about AI-assisted sandbox escape exploits, arguing that covert communication channels like heat and electromagnetic emissions should be viewed as primitive building blocks rather than complete exploits. He draws parallels to historical cases like NSO's FORCEDENTRY, where complex logic was constructed from minimal computational primitives.