CVE Vulnerability Scan with Nuclei

What this test checks

Known CVEs

Published vulnerabilities in the CMS, plugins, frameworks and servers detected on your site.

Exposed panels and files

Admin and login panels, configuration files, backups and other paths that should not be public.

Misconfigurations

Risky default settings and setup mistakes covered by the matching templates.

Severity and evidence

Each finding with its severity, the CVE ID where there is one, the URL it matched and reference links.

Technology fingerprinting

Nuclei's automatic scan identifies your stack first, so templates for software you do not use are skipped.

How it works

Nuclei runs on our test server in Virginia, USA, in automatic-scan mode with the ProjectDiscovery community templates.
Only templates rated critical, high, medium or low run; informational templates are skipped.
Traffic is limited to 25 requests per second with 10-second timeouts and no retries, and the scan stops probing your host after 10 errors.
Out-of-band callbacks (Interactsh) are turned off, and the URL must resolve to public IP addresses before the scan starts.
A scan typically takes about 2.5 minutes, findings appear as they are found, and it is stopped after 6 minutes at most.

How it is scored

The score starts at 100 and loses 40 points for each critical finding, 20 for each high, 8 for each medium and 2 for each low, with a floor of 0. Grades follow our scale: A+ 95+, A 90+, B 80+, C 70+, D 60+, F below 60.

Check	Good	Needs work	Poor
Critical findings	None	—	Any (−40 points each)
High findings	None	—	Any (−20 points each)
Medium findings	None	—	Any (−8 points each)
Low findings	None	Any (−2 points each)	—
Score after deductions	90–100 (A or A+)	70–89 (B or C)	Below 70 (D or F)

Grades: A+ 95–100 · A 90–94 · B 80–89 · C 70–79 · D 60–69 · F below 60.

FAQ

What is Nuclei?

Nuclei is an open-source vulnerability scanner from ProjectDiscovery. It uses YAML templates, each describing how to detect one specific CVE, exposure or misconfiguration, and the community maintains a large public library of them.

How is this different from the OWASP ZAP scan?

ZAP crawls your site and passively inspects the responses for general weaknesses. Nuclei targets specific known problems, such as published CVEs in the software you run and exposed admin panels or files, by sending the requests each matching template defines. Running both covers different kinds of issues.

Will a Nuclei scan harm my website?

The templates are written to detect vulnerabilities, not to exploit them, and the scan is limited to 25 requests per second with out-of-band callbacks turned off. It does send probe requests that can look like attacks in your logs or trigger your firewall, which is why it only runs on domains you have verified.

What should I do about a Nuclei finding?

Start with critical and high findings. Update the affected software to a fixed version, or remove or restrict access to the exposed path, then run the scan again to confirm the fix. Findings include reference links, such as the CVE entry or vendor advisory, where the template provides them.

Do I need a paid plan for the Nuclei scan?

Yes. Load tests and security scans are part of paid plans, from $5 for a 1-day pass, and they run only on domains you have verified. The other tests on Web-PSQC stay free.