In recent years, due to advances in informatization, the national economy has become more dependent on networks. As a result, the network and information security has become a prominent problem for the national security and social stability. Driven by economic interests and the game between countries reflected in the growing cyberspace confrontations, network attacks with high-tech, high concealment and long-term sustainability become one of the major challenges in the network security. In this paper, the certain kind of covert attack was referred as the evasive network attack (ENA). Firstly, the main characteristics of ENA and the challenges it brings in current security systems were analyzed, based on which the latest developments at home and abroad for ENA detection and other related studies were reviewed then. Finally, key technical issues and future research directions in this field were summarized.