The Metasploit Project is an open-source computer security

Computer security

Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to...

 project which provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration test

Penetration test

A penetration test, occasionally pentest, is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders and malicious insiders...

ing and IDS signature

Intrusion-detection system

An intrusion detection system is a device or software application that monitors network and/or system activities for malicious activities or policy violations and produces reports to a Management Station. Some systems may attempt to stop an intrusion attempt but this is neither required nor...

 development.
Its most well-known sub-project is the Metasploit Framework, a tool for developing and executing exploit

Exploit (computer security)

An exploit is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic...

 code against a remote target machine. Other important sub-projects include the Opcode Database, shellcode

Shellcode

In computer security, a shellcode is a small piece of code used as the payload in the exploitation of a software vulnerability. It is called "shellcode" because it typically starts a command shell from which the attacker can control the compromised machine. Shellcode is commonly written in...

 archive, and security research.

The Metasploit Project is also well known for anti-forensic

Anti-computer forensics

Anti-computer forensics is a general term for a set of techniques used as countermeasures to forensic analysis.- Definition :...

 and evasion tools, some of which are built into the Metasploit Framework.

Metasploit was created by HD Moore

HD Moore

HD Moore is the creator of Metasploit, a popular penetration testing software. HD founded the Metasploit Project in the summer of 2003 with the goal of becoming a public resource for exploit code research and development...

 in 2003 as a portable network tool using the Perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

 scripting language.