Nuclei
InformationalNuclei by ProjectDiscovery
Definition
Nuclei is a fast, flexible vulnerability scanner developed by ProjectDiscovery. It uses YAML templates to define requests and detection conditions, letting you scan applications for known CVEs, misconfigurations, information exposure and custom vulnerabilities. Its community template system contains thousands of up-to-date checks.
Impact
Mass scanning of assets for known CVEsDetecting common misconfigurations (CORS, headers, etc.)Customizable templates for specific vulnerabilitiesIntegration with other recon tools (subfinder, httpx)Active community with thousands of up-to-date templates
Examples
Basic Nuclei usage
Nuclei is extremely efficient for mass scanning. It is fed lists of URLs (generated with httpx/subfinder) and tests thousands of templates. It is the most popular automation tool in the bug bounty community.
# Scan a single host with all templates
nuclei -u https://example.com
# Scan a list of URLs
nuclei -l urls.txt
# Filter by severity
nuclei -l urls.txt -severity critical,high
# Scan CVEs only
nuclei -l urls.txt -tags cve
# Use a custom template
nuclei -u https://example.com -t my-template.yaml
# Basic custom template (YAML):
id: detect-admin-panel
info:
name: Admin Panel Detection
severity: info
requests:
- method: GET
path:
- "{{BaseURL}}/admin"
matchers:
- type: status
status:
- 200