shellcode vs shell-code. Shellcode traditionally meant binary that would do something like exec("/bin/bash") (i.e. code that launches a shell). When abusing a

shellcode vs shell-code. Shellcode traditionally meant binary that would do something like exec("/bin/bash") (i.e. code that launches a shell). When abusing a buffer overflow, you would usually want to somehow get this code to be executed. Later, the term expanded to mean any kind of user-provided bytes an attacker wants to be interperted and executed as machine instructions.