Detect and analyze heap spray attacks in memory dumps using Volatility3 plugins to identify NOP sled patterns, shellcode landing zones, and suspicious large allocations in process virtual address space.

mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills|Updated May 25, 2026

Works with

Claude CodeCursorClineWindsurfCodex

Installation Guide

Select your AI agent

How to use analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation on Cursor

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Prerequisites

Before installing skills in Cursor, ensure your development environment meets these requirements:

›Cursor installed and configured on your machine
›Node.js 16+ with npm — verify with node --version
›Active project directory where you want to add analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation

Run the install command

Execute the skills CLI command in your project's root directory to begin installation:

$npx skills install mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills/analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation

Fetches analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills and configures it for Cursor.

Select Cursor when prompted

The CLI shows a list of agents. Use arrow keys and space to select Cursor:

◆ Which agents do you want to install to?

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│ ── Universal (.agents/skills) ────────────────

│ · Cline · Codex · Goose · Windsurf

│ ●Cursor(selected)

│ · Cursor · Aider · Continue

Verify installation

Confirm successful installation by checking the skill directory location:

.cursor/skills/analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation

Restart Cursor to activate analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation. Access via /analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation in your agent's command palette.

⚠

Security Notice

We perform automated surface-level scans (Gen AI Scanner, Socket, Snyk) during installation. These checks detect common vulnerabilities but do not guarantee complete security. Always review skill source code and verify the publisher's reputation before production use.

Skills execute code in your environment. Always review source, verify the publisher, and test in isolation before production.

›View source on GitHub ›Skills CLI docs ›About Cursor ›What are agent skills?

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Use Cases

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Quality Improvement

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Review drafts, suggest improvements, catch errors

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Improve work quality by 30-40% with less effort

Overview

Heap spraying is an exploitation technique that fills large regions of a process's heap with attacker-controlled data (typically NOP sleds followed by shellcode) to increase the reliability of code execution exploits. This skill covers detecting heap spray artifacts in memory dumps using Volatility3's malfind, vadinfo, and memmap plugins, identifying suspicious contiguous memory allocations, scanning for NOP sled patterns (0x90, 0x0c0c0c0c), and extracting embedded shellcode for analysis.

When to Use

When investigating security incidents that require analyzing heap spray exploitation

When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain

When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type

When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Steps

Step 1: Identify Suspicious Processes

Use Volatility3 windows.malfind to scan for processes with executable injected memory regions.

Step 2: Analyze VAD Entries

Examine VAD tree entries using windows.vadinfo for large contiguous allocations with RWX permissions.

Step 3: Scan for NOP Sled Patterns

Search suspicious memory regions for NOP sled signatures (0x90 sequences, 0x0c0c0c0c patterns).

Step 4: Extract and Analyze Shellcode

Dump suspicious memory regions and identify shellcode using byte pattern analysis.

name	analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation
description	Detect and analyze heap spray attacks in memory dumps using Volatility3 plugins to identify NOP sled patterns, shellcode landing zones, and suspicious large allocations in process virtual address space.
domain	cybersecurity
subdomain	malware-analysis
tags	- malware-analysis - memory-forensics - heap-spray - volatility3 - exploit-analysis
version	'1.0'
author	mahipal
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	- DE.AE-02 - RS.AN-03 - ID.RA-01 - DE.CM-01

analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation

Installation Guide

How to use analyzing-heap-spray-exploitation on Cursor

Prerequisites

Run the install command

Select Cursor when prompted

Verify installation

Security Notice

Documentation

List & Monetize Your Skill

Use Cases

Task Automation & Efficiency

Knowledge Enhancement

Quality Improvement

Install Skill

Analyzing Heap Spray Exploitation

Overview

When to Use

Prerequisites

Steps

Step 1: Identify Suspicious Processes

Step 2: Analyze VAD Entries

Step 3: Scan for NOP Sled Patterns

Step 4: Extract and Analyze Shellcode

Expected Output

Implementation Guide

Best Practices

When to Use This

Learning Path

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