Exploiting a heap buffer overflow in linux
Thilan Dissanayaka Exploit Development Apr 12, 2026

Exploiting a heap buffer overflow in linux

In the previous article, we dissected glibc's malloc — chunks, bins, tcache, coalescing, and the metadata that holds it all together. Now we break it.

Heap exploitation is fundamentally different from stack exploitation. On the stack, the goal is clear: overwrite the return address, control EIP. On the heap, there's no return address to overwrite. Instead, we corrupt the allocator's metadata to trick malloc() into returning a pointer to memory we want to control — a function pointer, a GOT entry, a vtable, or any other target.

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Exploiting a heap buffer overflow in linux
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Exploiting a heap buffer overflow in linux

In the [previous article](/heap-internals-how-glibc-malloc-works/), we dissected glibc's malloc — chunks, bins, tcache, coalescing, and the metadata that holds it all together. Now we break...

AUTHOR
Thilan Dissanayaka

Thilan Dissanayaka

Security Engineer at WSO2. Passionate about clean code and cybersecurity. Building secure, scalable applications with modern technologies.

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