Rapid7 snaps up the Metasploit Project - Source SecurityFocus

Vulnerability management firm Rapid7 announced on Wednesday that the company had purchased the Metasploit Project, a popular software tool among penetration testers to exploit software flaws.

The founder of the project, security researcher HD Moore, will join Rapid7 as chief architect of Metasploit and chief security officer of Rapid7, the company said in a statement. The company plans to fund Moore and other developers to focus their work on the Metasploit project.

"Successful security requires equal understanding and capabilities of both offensive and defensive security best practices," the company said in a statement. "Metasploit gives Rapid7 access and collaboration with one of the largest, most sophisticated security researcher communities in the world."

The Metasploit Framework was created by Moore in 2003 and, until the acquisition, was maintained by a team of volunteers. The software can be used by security professionals and system administrators to perform penetration tests and verify the patch level of computers. While the software can be controlled by an interactive command line, a point-and-click AJAX-based Web interface is also available. The group released a major upgrade to the framework, version 3.0, in 2007. In November, the Metasploit Project plans to release its next major upgrade, version 3.3.

Moore and other members of the Metasploit team will now be able to work full time on the project's code, according to Rapid7.

"HD and the team will now have more dedicated resources and support to invest in exploit research and to create a broader penetration testing platform," the firm said.