# PentestMCP: A Toolkit for Agentic Penetration Testing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03610 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.03610/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 0 of its 12 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Agent threats, guardrails and governance](https://mlsanity.com/agents/agent-threats-guardrails-and-governance/)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [STRIATUM-CTF: A Protocol-Driven Agentic Framework for General-Purpose CTF Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22577/) (2026)
- [PentestChain: A Cost-Aware, MCP-Orchestrated Framework for Automated Penetration Testing with Free-Tier LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.18120/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Agentic AI is transforming security by automating many tasks being performed manually. While initial agentic approaches employed a monolithic architecture, the Model-Context-Protocol has now enabled a remote-procedure call (RPC) paradigm to agentic applications, allowing for the flexible construction and composition of multi-function agents. This paper describes PentestMCP, a library of MCP server implementations that support agentic penetration testing. By supporting common penetration testing tasks such as network scanning, resource enumeration, service fingerprinting, vulnerability scanning, exploitation, and post-exploitation, PentestMCP allows a developer to customize multi-agent workflows for performing penetration tests.