US Patent 11567878 Security aware prefetch mechanism

An apparatus to facilitate data cache security is disclosed. The apparatus includes a cache memory to store data; and prefetch hardware to pre-fetch data to be stored in the cache memory, including a cache set monitor hardware to determine critical cache addresses to monitor to determine processes that retrieve data from the cache memory; and pattern monitor hardware to monitor cache access patterns to the critical cache addresses to detect potential side-channel cache attacks on the cache memory by an attacker process.