Heap spraying V. Heap grooming

Heap Spraying

Heap spraying is the act of intentionally filling the target process’s heap space with data using external attack primitive. A heap spray does not actually exploit any security issues but it makes a vulnerability easier to exploit.

Heap Grooming

A technique that attempts to shape the heap in a manner that allows for follow on exploitation by the attacker. This technique is pivotal to improving the reliability of using heap memory corruption for exploitation.