Vulnerability scanning with OpenVAS
Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) is freeware that is a vulnerability scanner and management suite. OpenVAS and Nessus are similar; in fact, OpenVAS was forked from the last free version of Nessus before it went proprietary. In this recipe, we will cover how to install and perform a scan with OpenVAS.
Getting ready
To use OpenVAS to perform vulnerability scanning, you will need to have a remote system available for scanning. In the examples provided, an instance of Metasploitable2 is used to perform this task. For more information on how to set up Metasploitable2, refer to Chapter 1, Getting Started.
How to do it...
The following steps will guide you to perform vulnerability scan with the help of OpenVAS:
- OpenVAS does not come preinstalled on Kali Linux, but it is a simple process to get it installed and running. To begin, we will use the
apt-get
command to install the software; when prompted to continue, typeY
:

- Once successfully installed, run...