Communication protocols form the bedrock of our interconnected world, yet vulnerabilities within their implementations pose significant security threats. Recent developments have seen a surge in fuzzing-based research dedicated to uncovering these vulnerabilities within protocol implementations. However, there still lacks a systematic overview of protocol fuzzing for answering the essential questions such as what the unique challenges are, how existing works solve them, etc. To bridge this gap, we conducted a comprehensive investigation of related works from both academia and industry. Our study includes a detailed summary of the specific challenges in protocol fuzzing, and provides a systematic categorization and overview of existing research efforts. Furthermore, we explore and discuss potential future research directions in protocol fuzzing. This survey serves as a foundational guideline for researchers and practitioners in the field.

翻译：通信协议构成了我们互联世界的基石，但其实现中的漏洞却构成了重大安全威胁。近年来，基于模糊测试的协议实现漏洞挖掘研究取得了显著进展。然而，针对协议模糊测试的关键问题——例如其面临的独特挑战、现有研究如何解决这些挑战等——仍缺乏系统性的综述。为弥补这一空白，我们对学术界和工业界的相关研究进行了全面调研。本研究详细总结了协议模糊测试面临的特定挑战，并对现有研究成果进行了系统化的分类与概述。此外，我们探讨并讨论了协议模糊测试领域潜在的未来研究方向。本综述旨在为该领域的研究人员和实践者提供基础性指导。