This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: The OpenVAS framework got renamed to Greenbone Vulnerability Management (GVM) and OpenVAS (now Open Vulnerability Assessment Scanner) is now only a part of it. The article should be updated to reflect this change.. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help update this to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2020)

OpenVAS

Developer(s)	Greenbone Networks GmbH
Stable release	22.4.1[1] / 9 January 2023; 17 days ago (9 January 2023)
Repository	github.com/greenbone/openvas-scanner
Written in	C
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Vulnerability scanner
License	GPL
Website	www.openvas.org

OpenVAS (Open Vulnerability Assessment System, originally known as GNessUs) is the scanner component of Greenbone Vulnerability Manager (GVM), a software framework of several services and tools offering vulnerability scanning and vulnerability management.^[2]

All Greenbone Vulnerability Manager products are free software, and most components are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Plugins for Greenbone Vulnerability Manager are written in the Nessus Attack Scripting Language, NASL.

History

Greenbone Vulnerability Manager began under the name of OpenVAS, and before that the name GNessUs, as a fork of the previously open source Nessus scanning tool, after its developers Tenable Network Security changed it to a proprietary (closed source) license in October 2005.^[3] OpenVAS was originally proposed by pentesters at SecuritySpace,^[4] discussed with pentesters at Portcullis Computer Security^[5] and then announced^[6] by Tim Brown on Slashdot.

Greenbone Vulnerability Manager is a member project of Software in the Public Interest.^[7]

Structure

The OpenVAS 8 Structure

There is a daily updated feed of Network Vulnerability Tests (NVTs) - over 50,000 in total (as of July 2020).^[8]

Documentation

The OpenVAS protocol structure aims to be well-documented to assist developers. The OpenVAS Compendium is a publication of the OpenVAS Project that delivers documentation on OpenVAS.

See also

• Aircrack-ng
• BackBox
• BackTrack
• Kali Linux
• Kismet (software)
• List of free and open-source software packages
• Metasploit Project
• Nmap
• ZMap (software)

References

External links

• Official website
• OpenVAS, Nikto Nmap, OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) all in one
• OpenVAS, Nessus and NexPose Tested
• OpenVAS Protocol Documentation
• OpenVAS Compendium - A Publication of The OpenVAS Project