US Patent 9973531 Shellcode detection

According to one embodiment, a threat detection system is integrated with at least a dynamic analysis engine. The dynamic analysis engine is configured to automatically determine whether one or more objects included in received network traffic contains a heap spray attack. Upon detection of a potential heap spray attack, the dynamic analysis engine may copy potential shellcode within an object included in the received network traffic, insert the copy of the potential shellcode into a second region of allocated memory and analyze the execution of the potential shellcode to determine whether characteristics associated with an exploit are present.