A Survey on Network Attack Surface Mapping

Network services are processes running on a system with network exposure. A key activity for any network defender, penetration tester, or red team is network attack surface mapping, the act of detecting and categorizing those services through which a threat actor could attempt malicious activity. Many tools have arisen over the years to probe, identify, and classify these services for information and vulnerabilities. In this paper, we survey network attack surface mapping by reviewing several prominent tools and their features and then discussing recent works reflecting unique research using those tools. We conclude by covering several promising directions for future research.