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Nettacker

0.4.1 open-source

OWASPOWASPA nonprofit foundation that publishes open standards, guides, and ranked vulnerability lists—most famously the OWASP Top 10—giving cyber tools a vendor-neutral benchmark to test or report against. Nettacker is an open-source, Python-based automated penetration testing framework for reconnaissance, vulnerability assessments, and network security audits.

Summary

Nettacker is an open-source, Apache-licensed penetration testing and reconnaissance framework, run mostly from the command line though it also ships a web UI, that automates port scanning, service detection, subdomain enumeration, network mapping, vulnerability scanning and credential brute-forcing. It is built for cyber security professionals and ethical hackers who need to survey networks, web applications, IoTIoTA collective label for internet-connected physical devices — sensors, cameras, routers, appliances — that tools target because they run embedded firmware with limited patching and broad network exposure. devices and APIs for weaknesses rather than test one target by hand, and options like scan comparison and API allow-listing point to use in repeatable, automated audits rather than one-off manual testing. It sits in the same space as general-purpose recon and pentest frameworks, covering ground that might otherwise mean stitching together separate scanning and brute-forcing tools. Under the OWASP umbrella since 2017, it has 91 contributors and remains active, with 115 commits and 10 releases in the past year.

OWASP Nettacker is an open-source, Python-based automated penetration testing framework for reconnaissance, vulnerability assessments, and network security audits.

How Nettacker helps

Which hosts on this network are alive, and what services are running on them?

sweeps the address range and reports open ports and identified services host by host, so the full footprint is visible in one pass instead of one host at a time

Which subdomains exist for a domain that nobody told you about?

enumerates subdomains from certificate transparency and other discovery sources and lists what resolves, surfacing forgotten or shadow assets

Do any of these logins accept weak or reused credentials?

runs brute-force checks against services like SMB and web logins with supplied or default wordlists and reports which accounts and services accepted them

Which known vulnerabilities affect the services this scan found?

matches discovered services and versions (including things like CUPS, Jenkins, SmarterMail, CrushFTP, Adobe AEM) against its vulnerability checks and reports which targets are affected

Did this week's scan open up anything that last week's didn't?

compares two saved scan results and reports the differences, so a new port, service, or finding stands out instead of being buried in a full report

Can these results feed straight into the vulnerability tracker or CI pipeline the rest of the team already uses?

writes results out as SARIF or DefectDojo-compatible JSON alongside its own report formats, so findings drop into existing review or tracking tools without reformatting

all 7 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese Interface: English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese

Features

7 capabilities · 5 backed by code, an API document or a real run

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

Compare with peers →

  • Nettacker covers 1 of the 13 network discovery and scanning capabilities we track.
  • Nettacker covers 1 of the 2 vulnerability management capabilities we track.

What Nettacker offers you

  • Command-line interface2
  • JSON data export1
All capabilities 7 capabilities
Vulnerability scanning modules verified Provides specific scan modules to detect known vulnerabilities in services such as HTTP, Citrix, and Confluence. 18 releases · 5 other sources · first seen Jul 2023

Shared capability: Vulnerability scanning

release 18 total

  • Adds custom wordlists and directory-enumeration base paths for brute-force and discovery modules. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds --wordlist and --directory-enumeration-base-paths flags for custom directory enumeration 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Expands WordPress plugin coverage and refreshes bundled discovery wordlists. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds new scanners for CUPS, configuration files, SMB brute-force, Jenkins, SmarterMail, CrushFTP patch-date, and Adobe AEM patch-date. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds dir_scan module for directory enumeration 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source · release history
  • Adds SSL/TLS scanning modules for protocol and configuration analysis 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source · release history

docs

  • Automated penetration testing and information-gathering framework for port scanning, subdomain enumeration, vulnerability assessment, and credential brute-forci

command line

example

  • Use the new dir_scan module to enumerate directories on a web server. nettacker -i target.com -m dir_scan 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source
  • Scan a target for the Citrix CVE-2023-24488 vulnerability using the new module. nettacker -g <target> -m citrix_cve_2023_24488_vuln 0.3.1 · Jul 2023 · source
  • Scan for Progress MOVEit instances using the new version scan module. nettacker -g <target> -m moveit_version_scan 0.3.1 · Jul 2023 · source
Service discovery verified Discovers services during a scan, with an option to skip this discovery step. 5 releases · 3 other sources · first seen Dec 2021

Shared capability: Attack surface inventory

release

  • Adds FreeBSD support and ARM container images 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds crt.name as a source for subdomain discovery. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds FreeBSD support and ARM container images. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Exposes service-discovery, port-exclusion, and custom-header options in the Web UI. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • --skip-service-discovery can now be abbreviated as the -d CLI flag 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source · release history

command line

example

  • Run a scan skipping service discovery using the new shortcut flag to speed up large network sweeps. nettacker -d -i target.com --subdomain-list targets.txt 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source
  • Scan all subdomains for HTTP status docker run owasp/nettacker -i owasp.org -d -s -m http_status_scan
API server access control verified Restricts which hosts can connect to the tool's API server and logs incoming API access requests. 2 releases · 4 other sources · first seen Sep 2024

Also counts toward: Command-line interface

release

  • Adds browser-based file uploads for targets and wordlists in the Web UI. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds searchable profiles, scan methods, and results to the Web UI. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history

command line

  • --api-client-white-list-ips — define white list hosts, separate with , (examples: 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · command-line history
  • --api-access-log-filename — API access log filename 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · command-line history
  • --api-client-white-list — just allow white list hosts to connect to the API 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · command-line history

example

  • Launch Web UI via Docker Compose docker-compose up
Request customization and filtering verified Allows configuring scan requests with port exclusions, HTTP scheme selection, custom headers, and sensitive header filtering. 2 releases · 2 other sources · first seen Aug 2026

release

  • Adds --port-exclusions, --http-scheme, --custom-request-headers, and --sensitive-header-filtering options for request control 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds port exclusions, HTTP scheme selection, custom request headers, and sensitive-header filtering to scan configuration. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history

command line

Scan comparison reporting verified Compares results across scans and writes the comparison output to a specified report path. 1 release · 2 other sources · first seen Sep 2024

release

  • Introduces Scan Compare feature to analyze differences between scans 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source · release history

command line

Flexible output formats shipped Supports exporting scan results in SARIF and DefectDojo-compatible JSON formats. 2 releases · first seen Aug 2026

Also counts toward: Command-line interface, JSON data export

release

  • Adds --output-format options for SARIF and DefectDojo-compatible JSON 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
  • Adds SARIF and DefectDojo-compatible JSON as output formats for scan results. 0.4.1 · Aug 2026 · source · release history
Scan identification tracking shipped Generates a unique ScanID in CLI output and HTML reports to allow result tracking across sessions. 1 release · first seen Sep 2024

release

  • CLI output and HTML reports now include a unique ScanID field for result tracking 0.4.0 · Sep 2024 · source · release history

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 Nettacker, 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.

Score cards are part of every paid plan.

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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 Nettacker 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

Show

5 entries

  1. August 20261
  2. September 20241
  3. January 20241
  4. October 20231
  5. July 20231
    Show

    5 entries

    Project health

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

    1. Contributors 26 +7 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 4 +2 joined · −1 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 2 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 94% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close 2.9 days first maintainer reply 2.4 days
    6. Open backlog 104 of 410 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 10 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 104
    3. Contributors / month 4
    4. Commits / month 7
    5. Stars 5,572
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • bugs 7%
    • features 0%
    • questions 2%
    • other 91%

    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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