Heap Spraying

What is Heap Spraying?

Heap Spraying is an exploitation technique where attackers fill a program's heap memory with malicious payloads (e.g., shellcode) to increase the likelihood of successful exploitation. This technique is often used in conjunction with memory corruption vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflows or use-after-free bugs.

How Heap Spraying Works

Heap Spraying typically involves the following steps:

• Payload Creation: The attacker creates a malicious payload (e.g., shellcode) and encodes it in a way that can be sprayed into memory.
• Memory Allocation: The attacker allocates large amounts of memory on the heap and fills it with the payload.
• Exploitation: The attacker exploits a vulnerability to redirect execution to the sprayed memory, executing the payload.

Interactive Heap Spraying Example

Below is a simulation of a Heap Spraying attack. Click the button to see how an attacker sprays the heap with malicious payloads.

Heap Spraying Tools and Resources

Here are some tools and resources to help you understand and practice Heap Spraying:

How to Defend Against Heap Spraying

To protect your systems from Heap Spraying attacks, follow these best practices:

• Enable DEP: Use Data Execution Prevention (DEP) to prevent execution of code in non-executable memory regions.
• Use ASLR: Implement Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) to make it harder for attackers to predict memory addresses.
• Patch Vulnerabilities: Regularly update software to fix vulnerabilities that could be exploited for Heap Spraying.
• Monitor Memory Usage: Use tools to monitor and detect unusual memory allocation patterns.