Introduction to the NVD

Previously, we used terminal utilities and Python to grab service banners that provide information about the programs running on the target system. In this lesson, we’ll use the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) to determine if services contain exploitable vulnerabilities.

The NVD is maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and contains a complete listing of all publicly reported vulnerabilities. The search page is shown below.

Get hands-on with 1200+ tech skills courses.