To be very simplistic, timing attacks are a bit like buffer overflows, if you do then just right you can use them to read information about other processes, suc

To be very simplistic, timing attacks are a bit like buffer overflows, if you do then just right you can use them to read information about other processes, such as processes you aren't meant to be able to see into. Where they are different is that timing attacks usually serve as information extraction tools, which attackers can choose to further leverage by basing subsequent attacks on the information they obtained, where as buffer overflow attacks can do pretty much anything up to and including rooting a box or breaking out of a hypervisor.