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BeEF

v0.5.4.0 open-source

BeEF (Browser Exploitation Framework) is a penetration testing tool that hooks web browsers and uses them to launch attacks against target systems.

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Summary

BeEF is an open-source penetration testing tool, free to use, that hooks web browsers and uses them as beachheads for launching client-side attack modules against the systems behind them. You run it self-hosted, installing it from source with Ruby, SQLite and Node.js on Mac OS X or Linux (Windows is not supported), then starting the framework as a local service to control hooked browsers. It's aimed at penetration testers who need to assess client-side exposure rather than network or server hardening, since its own documentation frames it as looking past the perimeter to the browser itself, a niche distinct from general network exploitation frameworks. First committed in 2010 and still active, with 227 contributors and 289 commits in the past year, though the latest release was 301 days ago.

BeEF (Browser Exploitation Framework) is a penetration testing tool that hooks web browsers and uses them to launch attacks against target systems.

How BeEF helps

Which browsers on the target network can actually be reached and controlled once someone visits a page I control?

hooks the browser via a injected script and holds it as a live beachhead, listing connected browsers so the tester can pick a target to attack from within

What can I actually do once a browser inside a hardened network is hooked?

fires command modules against the hooked browser to run client-side attacks against the systems behind it, rather than attacking the network or server directly

Does a client's security posture hold up once the browser itself is treated as the open door?

runs attack vectors from inside the browser context to show what an attacker reaches once the perimeter and endpoint hardening are bypassed

Can I keep a foothold in a target's browser long enough to run more than one test against it?

keeps the hook alive as a persistent beachhead so multiple command modules can be launched against the same browser over the course of an engagement

all 3 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

Not documented

Features

3 capabilities

Built from BeEF's releases, docs, README and our own runs. “Seen” marks the month we first spotted a release the vendor didn't date.

Compare with peers →

All capabilities 3 capabilities
Apache Tomcat Default Installation Exploitation shipped The cyber tool includes an exploit module that targets default installations of Apache Tomcat. 1 release · first seen Nov 2021

release

  • apache_tomcat_default_install exploit module in modules/exploits v0.5.4.0 · Nov 2021 · source · release history
Browser Hooking documented Penetration testing framework that hooks web browsers and uses them as beachheads for launching client-side attacks and command modules. 1 other source

docs

  • Penetration testing framework that hooks web browsers and uses them as beachheads for launching client-side attacks and command modules.
Framework Initialization shipped Start the BeEF framework 1 other source

example

  • Start the BeEF framework ./beef

Lines in monospace are the tool's own words: help text parsed from its source, or an endpoint from its API document. Under release, a line is our summary of a dated release. Under docs, it is quoted from the tool's own documentation or website. Each links back to the source it came from.

Score card

  1. Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
  2. Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
  3. Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
  4. Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
  5. Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
  6. Community health
  7. Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
  8. Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
  9. Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
  10. Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply

Nine scores for BeEF, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.

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Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.

How this is scored
  • Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
  • Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
  • Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
  • Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
  • Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
  • Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
  • Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
  • Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.

Release-note detail over time

See how much detail BeEF puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.

Checking release-note history…

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Releases

1 entry

  1. November 20211

    1 entry

    1. v0.5.4.0 Nov 25, 2021 · release notes

      BeEF v0.5.4.0 adds Tomcat exploit module and update check for Kali

      └──▷ GET THIS VERSION 
      $ git clone --branch v0.5.4.0 https://github.com/beefproject/beef.git
# already have the repo? check out this version:
$ git checkout v0.5.4.0
      • apache_tomcat_default_install exploit module in modules/exploits

      1 detail in Everything

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in beefproject/beef, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 6 +3 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 3 +2 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 2 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 69% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close 14 days first maintainer reply 11 days
    6. Open backlog 34 of 2,246 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 34
    3. Contributors / month 0
    4. Commits / month 0
    5. Stars 11,022
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • questions 3%
    • other 97%

    Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this

    Libraries its release ships

    What its latest release locks, checked against known advisories.

    None of its release's images build from a lockfile we can read.

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