OpenVAS

OpenVAS (Open Vulnerability Assessment System, now known as Greenbone Vulnerability Management) is a comprehensive open-source vulnerability scanning and management framework. Originally developed as a community fork of the commercial Nessus vulnerability scanner in 2005 (when Nessus changed from GPLv2 to a proprietary license), OpenVAS has evolved into one of the most powerful open-source vulnerability scanners, used by security professionals, penetration testers, and IT administrators to identify security weaknesses in networks, systems, and applications. The project is maintained by Greenbone Networks, a German cybersecurity company that provides both the open-source Community Edition and a commercial Enterprise product. Key components include: the Scanner (the core scanning engine that executes Network Vulnerability Tests against target systems, currently performing over 100,000 individual vulnerability checks), the Manager (the central component that orchestrates scan configurations, stores scan results, manages user access, and generates reports), the Administrator (handles user management, feed management, and configuration), the GTK-based GUI (Greenbone Security Assistant, a web-based interface for configuring and managing scans), the vulnerability tests themselves (Network Vulnerability Tests, written in the custom NASL scripting language, covering network services, web applications, databases, and operating systems), and the continuously updated vulnerability feed (the Greenbone Community Feed provides daily updates with new vulnerability checks for newly disclosed CVEs, with the commercial feed offering additional checks and earlier updates). The scanner supports authenticated scanning (logging into target systems via SSH or SMB to check installed software versions and configuration). As of 2026, the project has over 3,200 stars.