Nuclei is a template-based vulnerability scanner written in Go. It allows users to define security checks using YAML or JSON templates, which can be executed against a wide range of targets via multiple protocols (HTTP, DNS, network, file, etc.). The scanner features a modular architecture with a core engine that orchestrates template execution, a template system for parsing and compiling checks, and protocol-specific implementations for sending requests and processing responses. Key features include workflow chaining for multi-step attacks, fuzzing capabilities for dynamic application security testing, JavaScript extensibility for custom logic in templates, and integrations with various issue trackers and cloud platforms for result reporting. The project emphasizes performance through optimizations like template clustering (deduplicating identical requests across templates) and connection pooling. The codebase demonstrates strong engineering practices in several areas: a self-contained template clustering system for request deduplication, a JavaScript binding generation system that automates the creation of Goja-compatible libraries, a workflow context propagation system for sharing data between template steps, and a cryptographic template signing mechanism to ensure integrity. These components are designed to be reusable and showcase non-obvious solutions to common problems in security tooling. Maintenance is active with recent commits and a vibrant community. The project keeps pace with its ecosystem, showing low technical drift through regular updates to dependencies and active maintenance of generated code. Its extensive test suite and CI/CD pipelines further indicate a healthy, well-maintained project.
Strix is an open-source, AI-powered penetration testing tool that orchestrates multiple LLM-driven agents to autonomously discover and validate security vulnerabilities in web applications, APIs, source code, and infrastructure. The system operates as a CLI application with three interface surfaces: a headless/non-interactive mode for CI/CD pipelines, a feature-rich Go Bubble Tea TUI for interactive scanning, and a local React web viewer for reviewing results. Scans run inside Docker sandboxes with a Caido interception proxy sidecar, allowing agents to execute shell commands, browse applications, modify requests, and apply patches. The architecture follows a multi-agent coordination pattern where a root agent delegates tasks to child agents, tracks coverage, manages budgets, and produces comprehensive reports including CVSS-scored vulnerabilities, proof-of-concept exploits, and fix recommendations. The codebase demonstrates strong engineering practices with extensive test coverage, atomic file operations, output bounding, MCP tool integration, and a sophisticated IPC protocol between the Python backend and Go TUI. Key features include: multi-agent orchestration with parent/child messaging and budget enforcement; Docker sandboxed execution with Caido proxy integration; support for multiple LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, LiteLLM, Bedrock, etc.); MCP (Model Context Protocol) tool integration; SARIF and PDF report generation; cloud platform integration for managed scans; and a local web viewer with live transcript and vulnerability triage. The repository is primarily an application but includes data-oriented components like LLM cost tracking, coverage ledgers, and vulnerability deduplication using LLM-based comparison.
WPScan is a Ruby-based CLI security scanner for WordPress sites. It detects vulnerabilities in WordPress core, plugins, and themes, enumerates users and misconfigurations, and supports password brute-force attacks. The architecture follows a controller/finder pattern: controllers orchestrate scan phases (version detection, enumeration, password attack), and finders implement passive/aggressive detection strategies for specific items (plugins, themes, users, backups, etc.). HTTP client is a singleton wrapping Typhoeus with caching, throttling, and proxy support. Vulnerability data is retrieved from the WPScan API or local enterprise database dumps. The codebase is well-structured with clear separation of concerns, extensive test coverage, and support for multiple output formats (CLI, JSON, SARIF). It is actively maintained and regularly updated to keep pace with WordPress ecosystem changes.
Liffy is a comprehensive Local File Inclusion (LFI) exploitation tool designed for security testing and penetration testing. It provides a modular command-line interface that supports multiple LFI techniques including data://, expect://, input://, filter:// wrappers, log poisoning, null byte attacks, ZIP wrapper exploitation, and blind LFI detection. The tool features advanced capabilities such as WAF bypass techniques, encoding layers, multi-threading with rate limiting, custom headers, POST request support, and rich terminal output. Architecture follows a modular design with core techniques isolated in separate modules, coordinated by a main orchestrator (liffy.py) that handles argument parsing, configuration loading, and execution management.
garak is a CLI tool and Python library for automated red-teaming and vulnerability scanning of large language models (LLMs). It systematically probes models with adversarial inputs (jailbreaks, prompt injections, encoding attacks, etc.) and uses detectors to classify model responses for safety failures. It supports multiple model backends (OpenAI, Anthropic, HuggingFace, etc.) and generates structured reports with severity scoring. The system follows a modular plugin architecture with base classes for probes, detectors, generators, harnesses, evaluators, and buffs. Plugins are dynamically loaded and configured via a hierarchical config system. The default harness runs probes with their associated detectors, while a cross-product harness allows all probes against all detectors. Results are logged as JSONL and can be visualized via a React-based web UI (garak-report) that displays DEFCON-level severity, calibration Z-scores, and technique-intent matrices. While primarily an application, garak incorporates significant research elements: it implements state-of-the-art attack techniques (GCG, AutoDAN, BEAST, TAP) and includes curated datasets of adversarial prompts and calibration data. The codebase serves both as a practical security tool and as a research platform for LLM vulnerability assessment.
Safety is a commercial CLI tool for software supply chain security, primarily scanning Python (and limited npm) dependencies for known vulnerabilities. It operates as a multi-command CLI built with Click and Typer, offering commands such as `scan`, `check`, `auth`, `firewall`, `init`, and `codebase`. The architecture is modular: a core scanning engine (`safety/scan/`) discovers dependency files (requirements.txt, pyproject.toml, Pipfile.lock, etc.), resolves packages, and matches them against a proprietary vulnerability database fetched from the Safety platform. Results are formatted via a pluggable formatter system (JSON, HTML, screen, text, SPDX) and can be uploaded to the platform for reporting. The tool also includes a firewall mode that intercepts pip/poetry/uv/npm install commands to block malicious packages in real time, using shell aliases (Unix) or registry/autorun (Windows). Authentication is multi-modal: OAuth2 (browser-based), API keys, and machine tokens, with a complex enrollment flow for enterprise MDM. An internal event bus (`safety/events/event_bus/bus.py`) provides async telemetry and audit trail emission, used throughout auth, init, and scan workflows. The codebase demonstrates strong engineering practices: layered configuration resolution (CLI > env > config file > default), a command wrapper pattern for package managers, and a policy file system (YAML) for ignoring vulnerabilities by severity, CVSS score, or expiration. However, there is notable technical drift: the legacy `check` and `license` commands are deprecated but still present, typing is incomplete in several modules, and the Windows firewall interceptor relies on fragile registry manipulation. The test suite is extensive but heavily mocks external services, making integration tests brittle. External dependencies include `httpx`, `authlib`, `tenacity`, `rich`, `pydantic`, `dparse`, `packaging`, `certifi`, `filelock`, and the proprietary `safety-schemas` package. The tool is distributed as a PyPI package and as a GitHub Action, with CI/CD pipelines building platform-specific binaries via PyInstaller and PyApp. Overall, Safety is a mature, feature-rich security tool with a well-architected core, though some areas show signs of rapid feature growth and legacy debt.
SILENTCHAIN AIâ„¢ Community Edition is a Burp Suite extension that performs AI-powered passive vulnerability scanning of HTTP traffic. It intercepts requests/responses through Burp's proxy, sends them to configurable AI providers (Burp AI, Ollama, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Azure), and generates OWASP Top 10 vulnerability findings. The extension features a modular architecture with a thread pool for background AI processing, Swing-based UI integrated into Burp Suite, and persistence for settings via Burp's preferences API. Key capabilities include bidirectional data sanitization to prevent leaking secrets to AI providers, robust JSON parsing for handling LLM output inconsistencies, layered HTTP filtering (scope, content-type, rate limiting, URL deduplication), and real-time UI updates showing findings, task status, and statistics.
Agentic Security is an open-source LLM vulnerability scanner that probes AI endpoints for security weaknesses such as jailbreaks, prompt injection, data leakage, and sandbox escapes. It provides both a FastAPI web server (port 8718) with a Vue.js frontend and a Fire-based CLI (server, ci, init, ls, scan). The core scan engine sends adversarial prompts (text, image, audio) to target LLMs via configurable HTTP specs, classifies responses using a multi-layered refusal detection system (phrase-based, OneClassSVM, PII detector, LLM-as-judge, hybrid voting), and generates detailed reports with failure rates and cost metrics. The architecture is modular: LLM provider abstraction (OpenAI, Anthropic, LiteLLM), resilience primitives (rate limiter, circuit breaker, concurrent executor), plugin-based refusal classifiers, and a dataset registry supporting HuggingFace, CSV, Google Sheets, and dynamic transformations (stenography, encoding). It also integrates external red-teaming tools (Garak, Inspect AI) and includes reinforcement learning and Bayesian optimization for adaptive prompt selection. While primarily an application, it contains significant data/research components (ML models, datasets, refusal classification research) that support its scanning mission.
This repository contains a WP-CLI command-line tool for scanning WordPress installations for known vulnerabilities. It integrates with three vulnerability databases: WPScan, Patchstack, and Wordfence Intelligence, allowing users to check WordPress core, plugins, and themes for security issues through a unified interface. The architecture follows a service pattern where each vulnerability provider has its own service class extending a base service class. The main Vulnerability_CLI class handles command registration, argument parsing, output formatting, and coordination with the appropriate service based on configuration. The tool supports multiple output formats (table, CSV, JSON, count, IDs, YAML) and includes features like Nagios monitoring output and email notifications for automated scanning. Although the project is explicitly marked as archived and no longer actively maintained, it demonstrates solid engineering practices with clear separation of concerns, proper error handling, and comprehensive testing through Behat scenarios for each supported vulnerability provider.