The heap is used for dynamic memory allocation. It resides in the RAM like the stack, but it is slower. The kernel heap is using the following three types of allocators:
- SLAB: This is a cache-friendly allocator.
- Simple list of blocks (SLOB): This is an allocator used in small systems. It uses a first-fit algorithm.
- SLUB: It is the default Linux allocator.
Kernel heap exploits are dangerous because in most cases, the attacker doesn't need to prepare a Linux module debugging environment.
