# A Systematic Literature Review on Penetration Testing in Networks: Future Research Directions
## 1 Introduction
### Penetration Testing Tools  
Penetration testing involves simulating different types of attacks to identify the existing vulnerabilities in the system using different tools. These tools are very important and fundamental for testers. See Table 2, Researchers have studied different tools including:* Aircrack-ng is a complete suite of tools for evaluating the security of WiFi networks and focuses on different areas of WiFi security, which are detection, packet sniffing, WEP and WPA/WPA2-PSK cracking and analysis tool for 802.11 wireless LANs [6].
* Nmap is a network mapper which is used as penetration-testing tool to scan the network to identify ports, hosts, operating systems, and services to discover vulnerabilities. [4] It is used in the first phase of penetration testing. It is also suitable for scanning large and small networks. Nmap scans many type of protocols and existing systems [9].
* Metasploit is an open-source penetration tool that allows you to test vulnerabilities in operating systems and applications. It runs a set of codes on the test target. It creates a framework for penetration testing and works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows [10].
* BeEF is Browser Exploitation Framework, which is used for the web browser. It works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. It examines exploitability in the context of web browsers [10].
* Shadow is a search engine that allows you to find specific devices and their types. It scans the entire Internet and then analyzes the banners returned by the scanned devices. The results are the versions of Web servers, anonymous FTP servers if they exist in a specific location, and information about the device's model [1].
* Nessus is a remote advance scan tool that used in penetration testing. It runs in one machine to scan the services offered by a remote machine. It is used in over 75,000 organizations world wide [10].
* Wireshark is an open source program that runs on UNIX, Windows and many other operating systems. It uses a graphical user interface and called network sniffer. It is a passive tool used for troubleshooting network problems. It analyzes and captures packet traffic without being detected by other parties [1].
* Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is a simple and free security solution that integrates penetration testing to detect vulnerabilities in web applications. For this reason, it is the best tool for developers and functional testers who are new to penetration testing, as it can be used by people with a wide range of security experience.
* Netcat is a command line tool that uses the TCP or UDP protocols to read and write data over network connections. It is one of the strongest weapons in the inventory of network and system administrators [11].  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline
**Tool Name** & **Purpose** & **Portability** \\ \hline \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Nmap} & & It runs on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, OS \\  & It is used for: & X, HP-UX, NetBSD, Sun, OpenBSD, \\  & & Solaris, and Mac. \\ \cline{1-1}  & - Network Scanning; & \\  & - Port Scanning; and & \\  & - OS Detection. & \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Metasploit Framework} & It is used to create and execute exploit & Any Windows and Unix version. \\  & codes against a remote target. & It is used to test the vulnerability of \\ \cline{1-1}  & computer systems. & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\begin{tabular}{c c} BeEF & It is used to exploit the cross-scripting & It runs on Mac OSX 10.5.0 or \\ \cline{1-1}  & XSS flaw in a web application. & modern Linux. \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 2: Penetration Testing Tools.