  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.
