Heap Vulnerability Exploitation Techniques on the Linux Platform: An Overview

Heap vulnerability exploitation involves utilizing the inherent weaknesses in the heap memory manager's internal mechanisms, enabling the allocation and deallocation of memory spaces according to an attacker's strategy. Its objectives include denial of service, information disclosure, and arbitrary code execution, making it a focal point for both attackers and security analysts. To improve our understanding of the technique and enhance the fix efficiency, this paper comprehensively analyzes the research status of heap exploitation techniques on the Linux platform. We focus on four aspects: heap memory management mechanisms, heap vulnerabilities types, heap vulnerability discovery and exploitation. We also examines the adversarial relationship between glibc and heap exploitation techniques, predict future trends in heap vulnerability exploitation, and provide protection recommendations.