Glossary
Staged Payload
A payload split into a small stager that connects back and downloads the larger second stage; requires a handler rather than a plain listener.
A staged payload is delivered in two parts: a tiny stager runs on the
target, connects back, and downloads the real payload (the stage) from your
handler. Staging fits payloads into tight execution primitives, but it needs
a handler ready to serve the stage — a plain listener
receives the stager and has nothing to send, so the session dies on arrival.
The opposite is a stageless payload, which is self-contained. In Metasploit
naming, a slash (shell/reverse_tcp) is staged and an underscore
(shell_reverse_tcp) is stageless. See
staged vs stageless.