Getting Started with NetExec: Streamlining Network Discovery and Access

## Executive Summary This article is a practical guide to NetExec — an actively developed open-source tool for Active Directory authentication testing and post-exploitation — covering its key features, supported protocols (SMB, LDAP, WinRM, SSH, etc.), installation on Linux/macOS/Windows, and numerous usage examples (domain/user enumeration, password spraying, NTLM/kerberos auth, remote command execution, and LDAP queries). It highlights how NetExec accelerates large-scale authentication testing and provides both offensive use cases for penetration testers and defensive applications for hardening AD environments and improving detection.