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A vulnerability assessment is a systematic review of security weaknesses in an information system. It evaluates if the system is susceptible to any known vulnerabilities, assigns severity levels to those vulnerabilities, and recommends remediation or mitigation, if and whenever needed.

Examples of threats that can be prevented by vulnerability assessment include:

• SQL injection ,  XSS  and other code injection attacks.
• Escalation of privileges due to faulty authentication mechanisms.
• Insecure defaults – software that ships with insecure settings, such as a guessable admin passwords.

There are several types of vulnerability assessments. These include:

• Host assessment  – The assessment of critical servers, which may be vulnerable to attacks if not adequately tested or not generated from a tested machine image.
• Network and wireless assessment  – The assessment of policies and practices to prevent unauthorized access to private or public networks and network-accessible resources.
• Database assessment  – The assessment of databases or big data systems for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, identifying rogue databases or insecure dev/test environments, and classifying sensitive data across an organization’s infrastructure.
• Application scans  – The identifying of security vulnerabilities in web applications and their source code by automated scans on the front-end or static/dynamic analysis of source code.

This is part of an extensive series of guides about [ data security ]

Vulnerability assessment: Security scanning process

The security scanning process consists of four steps: testing, analysis, assessment and remediation.

1. Vulnerability identification (testing)

The objective of this step is to draft a comprehensive list of an application’s vulnerabilities. Security analysts test the security health of applications, servers or other systems by scanning them with automated tools, or testing and evaluating them manually. Analysts also rely on vulnerability databases, vendor vulnerability announcements, asset management systems and threat intelligence feeds to identify security weaknesses.

2. Vulnerability analysis

The objective of this step is to identify the source and root cause of the vulnerabilities identified in step one.

It involves the identification of system components responsible for each vulnerability, and the root cause of the vulnerability. For example, the root cause of a vulnerability could be an old version of an open source library. This provides a clear path for remediation – upgrading the library.

3. Risk assessment

The objective of this step is the prioritizing of vulnerabilities. It involves security analysts assigning a rank or severity score to each vulnerability, based on such factors as:

• Which systems are affected.
• What data is at risk.
• Which business functions are at risk.
• Ease of attack or compromise.
• Severity of an attack.
• Potential damage as a result of the vulnerability.

4. Remediation

The objective of this step is the closing of security gaps. It’s typically a joint effort by security staff, development and operations teams, who determine the most effective path for remediation or mitigation of each vulnerability.

Specific remediation steps might include:

• Introduction of new security procedures, measures or tools.
• The updating of operational or configuration changes.
• Development and implementation of a vulnerability patch.

Vulnerability assessment cannot be a one-off activity. To be effective, organizations must operationalize this process and repeat it at regular intervals. It is also critical to foster cooperation between security, operation and development teams – a process known as  DevSecOps .

Vulnerability assessment tools

Vulnerability assessment tools are designed to automatically scan for new and existing threats that can target your application. Types of tools include:

• Web application scanners that test for and simulate known attack patterns.
• Protocol scanners that search for vulnerable protocols, ports and network services.
• Network scanners that help visualize networks and discover warning signals like stray IP addresses, spoofed packets and suspicious packet generation from a single IP address.

It is a best practice to schedule regular, automated scans of all critical IT systems. The results of these scans should feed into the organization’s ongoing vulnerability assessment process.

Vulnerability assessment and WAF

Imperva’s web application firewall  helps protect against application vulnerabilities in several ways:

• As a gateway for all incoming traffic, it can proactively filter out malicious visitors and requests, such as SQL injections and XSS attacks. This eliminates the risk of data exposure to malicious actors.
• It can perform virtual-patching — the auto-applying of a patch for a newly discovered vulnerability at the network edge, giving developers and IT teams the opportunity to safely deploy a new patch on the application without concern.
• Our WAF provides a view of security events.  Attack Analytics  helps contextualize attacks and expose overarching threats, (e.g., showing thousands of seemingly unrelated attacks as part of one big attack campaign).
• Our WAF integrates with all leading  SIEM platforms  to provide you with a clear view of the threats you’re facing and help you prepare for new attacks.

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What is vulnerability management?

Vulnerability management is a risk-based approach to discovering, prioritizing, and remediating vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

• Discover Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management

Vulnerability management defined

Vulnerability management is a continuous, proactive, and often automated process that keeps your computer systems, networks, and enterprise applications safe from  cyberattacks  and data breaches. As such, it is an important part of an overall security program. By identifying, assessing, and addressing potential security weaknesses, organizations can help prevent attacks and minimize damage if one does occur.

The goal of  vulnerability management  is to reduce the organization's overall risk exposure by mitigating as many vulnerabilities as possible. This can be a challenging task, given the number of potential vulnerabilities and the limited resources available for remediation. Vulnerability management should be a continuous process to keep up with new and emerging threats and changing environments.

How vulnerability management works

Threat and vulnerability management uses a variety of tools and solutions to prevent and address cyberthreats. An effective vulnerability management program typically includes the following components:

Asset discovery and inventory IT is responsible for tracking and maintaining records of all devices, software, servers, and more across the company’s digital environment, but this can be extremely complex since many organizations have thousands of assets across multiple locations. That’s why IT professionals turn to asset inventory management systems, which help provide visibility into what assets a company has, where they’re located, and how they’re being used.

Vulnerability scanners Vulnerability scanners usually work by conducting a series of tests against systems and networks, looking for common weaknesses or flaws. These tests can include attempting to exploit known vulnerabilities, guessing default passwords or user accounts, or simply trying to gain access to restricted areas.

Patch management Patch management software is a tool that helps organizations keep their computer systems up to date with the latest security patches. Most patch management solutions will automatically check for updates and prompt the user when new ones are available. Some patch management systems also allow for deployment of patches across multiple computers in an organization, making it easier to keep large fleets of machines secure.

Configuration Management Security Configuration Management (SCM) software helps to ensure that devices are configured in a secure manner, that changes to device security settings are tracked and approved, and that systems are compliant with security policies. Many SCM tools include features that allow organizations to scan devices and networks for vulnerabilities, track remediation actions, and generate reports on security policy compliance.

Security incident and event management(SIEM) SIEM  software consolidates an organization's security information and events in real time. SIEM solutions are designed to give organizations visibility into everything that's happening across their entire digital estate, including IT infrastructure. This includes monitoring network traffic, identifying devices that are trying to connect to internal systems, keeping track of user activity, and more.

Penetration testing Penetration testing software is designed to help IT professionals find and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems. Typically, penetration testing software provides a graphical user interface (GUI) that makes it easy to launch attacks and see the results. Some products also offer automation features to help speed up the testing process. By simulating attacks, testers can identify weak spots in systems that could be exploited by real-world attackers.

Threat intelligence Threat protection  software provides organizations with the ability to track, monitor, analyze, and prioritize potential threats to better protect themselves. By collecting data from a variety of sources—such as exploit databases and security advisories—these solutions help companies identify trends and patterns that could indicate a future security breach or attack.

Remediation vulnerabilities Remediation involves prioritizing vulnerabilities, identifying appropriate next steps, and generating remediation tickets so that IT teams can execute on them. Finally, remediation tracking is an important tool for ensuring that the vulnerability or misconfiguration is properly addressed.

Vulnerability management lifecycle

The vulnerability management lifecycle has six key phases. Organizations looking to implement or improve their vulnerability management program can follow these steps.

Phase 1: Discovery

Create a full asset inventory across your organization’s network. Develop a baseline for your security program by identifying vulnerabilities on an automated schedule so you can stay ahead of threats to company information.

Phase 4: Reporting

Next, determine the various levels of risk associated with each asset based on your assessment results. Then, document your security plan and report known vulnerabilities.

Phase 2: Prioritization of assets

Assign a value to each asset group that is reflective of its criticality. This will help you understand which groups need more attention and will help streamline your decision-making process when faced with allocating resources.

Phase 5: Remediation

Now that you know which vulnerabilities are the most pressing for your business, it’s time to fix them, starting with those that pose the highest risks.

Phase 3: Assessment

The third part of the vulnerability management lifestyle is assessing your assets to understand the risk profile of each one. This allows you to determine which risks to eliminate first based on a variety of factors, including its criticality and vulnerability threat levels as well as classification.

Phase 6: Verification and monitoring

The final phase of the vulnerability management process includes using regular audits and process follow-up to ensure that threats have been eliminated.

Vulnerability management benefits

Vulnerability management helps businesses identify and fix potential security issues before they become serious  cybersecurity  concerns. By preventing data breaches and other security incidents, vulnerability management can prevent damage to a company's reputation and bottom line.

Additionally, vulnerability management can improve compliance with various security standards and regulations. And finally, it can help organizations better understand their overall security risk posture and where they may need to make improvements.

In today’s hyperconnected world, running occasional security scans and dealing with cyberthreats in a reactive manner is not a sufficient cybersecurity strategy. A solid vulnerability management process has three key advantages over ad hoc efforts, including:

Improved security and control By regularly scanning for vulnerabilities and patching them in a timely manner, organizations can make it significantly harder for attackers to gain access to their systems. Additionally, robust vulnerability management practices can help organizations identify potential weaknesses in their security posture before attackers do.

Visibility and reporting Vulnerability management provides centralized, accurate, and up-to-date reporting on the status of an organization’s security posture, giving IT personnel at all levels real-time visibility into potential threats and vulnerabilities.

Operational efficiencies By understanding and mitigating security risks, businesses can minimize system downtime and protect their data. Improving the overall vulnerability management process also decreases the amount of time required to recover from any incidents that do occur.

How to manage vulnerabilities

Once you have a vulnerability management program in place, there are four basic steps for managing known and potential vulnerabilities as well as misconfigurations.

Step 1: Identify vulnerabilities Scanning for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations is often at the center of a vulnerability management program. Vulnerability scanners—which are typically continuous and automated—identify weaknesses, threats, and potential vulnerabilities across systems and networks.

Step 2: Evaluate vulnerabilities Once potential vulnerabilities and misconfigurations are identified, they must be validated as a true vulnerability, rated according to risk, and prioritized based on those risk ratings.

Step 3: Address vulnerabilities After evaluation, organizations have a few options for treating known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. The best option is to remediate, which means fully fixing or patching vulnerabilities. If full remediation isn’t possible, organizations can mitigate, which means decreasing the possibility of exploitation or minimizing the potential damage. Finally, they can accept the vulnerability—for example, when the associated risk is low—and take no action.

Step 4: Report vulnerabilities Once vulnerabilities are treated, it’s important to document and report known vulnerabilities. Doing so helps IT personnel track vulnerability trends across their networks and ensures that organizations remain compliant with various security standards and regulations.

Vulnerability management solutions

Clearly, having a solid vulnerability management process in place is not only a smart decision—it’s a necessary one. It's critical to find a  vulnerability management solution  that bridges the gap between teams, maximizes resources, and provides all your visibility, assessment, and remediation capabilities in a single place.

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Frequently asked questions

What are some types of vulnerabilities in cybersecurity.

Some common types of vulnerabilities in cybersecurity include: 

• Weak passwords
• Insufficient authentication and authorization procedures, such as those that lack  2FA  and  MFA
• Unsecure networks and communications
• Malware  and viruses
• Phishing  scams
• Unpatched software and hardware vulnerabilities

Why do we need vulnerability management?

Vulnerability management is essential for any organization that relies on information technology, as it helps to protect against known and unknown threats. In today's hyperconnected world, new vulnerabilities are constantly being discovered, so it's important to have a process in place for managing them. By implementing a vulnerability management program, you can reduce the risk of exploitation and safeguard your organization against potential attacks.

What is the difference between vulnerability management and assessment?

The key difference between vulnerability management and assessment is that vulnerability management is an on-going process while vulnerability assessment is a one-time event. Vulnerability management is the process of continuously identifying, evaluating, treating, and reporting vulnerabilities. Assessment, on the other hand, is the act of determining the risk profile of each vulnerability.

What is vulnerability scanning in cybersecurity?

Vulnerability scanning is the process of identifying known and potential security vulnerabilities. Vulnerability scanners—which can be operated manually or automatically—use various methods to probe systems and networks. Once a vulnerability is found, the scanner will attempt to exploit it in order to determine whether a hacker could potentially exploit it as well. This information can then be used to help organizations patch their systems and develop a plan to improve their overall security posture.

What are some common methods for managing vulnerabilities?

There are many ways to manage vulnerabilities, but some common methods include:

• Using vulnerability scanning tools to identify potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited
• Restricting access to sensitive information and systems to authorized users only
• Updating software and security patches regularly
• Deploying firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other security measures to protect against attacks

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What is Vulnerability Assessment?

Living in a world with more and more complex threats posted by cybercriminals, it is imperative that you shield your networks. A vulnerability scanning is done to understand areas that are prone to an attack by the invader before they exploit the system. The above measures not only protect data and guard against data leakage but also help meet security requirements and strengthen risk management. In this article, we’ll look at what vulnerability assessment is, why it is important, and how it stands from penetration testing. We will also outline how the assessment is conducted, the provided tool, and key advantages and disadvantages.

What is a Vulnerability Assessment?

A vulnerability assessment is a procedure that is employed in an information system to determine and rate potential risks. It seeks to identify vulnerabilities that can be leveraged by an attacker to compromise the system and to employ tools and techniques that ensure that data confidentiality, integrity, and availability are achieved. This systematic review assists organizations in identifying security issues like cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection before they can be leveraged.

Importance of Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability assessments are very important in the protection of information systems and data. They help by:

• Preventing Data Breaches: Directing single and exclusive attention to every risk in line with time and noticing the recurrent threats so as to treat them before they bring about expensive security invasions.
• Ensuring Regulatory Compliance: Conformity to the laws and evasion of the law.
• Managing Risks: Risk priority and risk control to improve the general shareholder’s risk evaluation.
• Enhancing Security Posture: Periodic evaluations enhance security by making provisions of security to cater for emerging threats.
• Cost-Effective Security: This solution lowers the expensive costs associated with security incidents that occur when the vulnerabilities are not tended to as soon as they are identified.

Types of Vulnerability Assessments

• Host Vulnerability Assessment: Conducts analysis on the servers and host systems so as to expose and contain backend attacks.
• Database Vulnerability Assessment: Provides for the prevention of unauthorized access of data within the database in terms of confidentiality, integrity and availability.
• Network Vulnerability Assessment: Evaluates the security of networks with the aim of attainable protection against oncoming and existing network complexity.
• Application Scan Vulnerability Assessment: Scans application code for application level vulnerabilities in frontend and backend auto-mated tools.

Vulnerability Assessments vs Penetration Tests

How does a vulnerability assessment work.

• Planning and Scoping: Identify the parameters, aims and objectives and target system of the assessment.
• Discovery: Collect general information about the system: hosts, ports, and software, etc. Collect it with using specialized software and through manual assessment.
• Scanning: Make a scan to each host in order to detect open ports, mistakes or problems in configurations.
• Analysis: Analyze scan information to identify imperatives and determine their potential vulnerability.
• Reporting: Record exploits, their consequences and rank suggestions for insurance.
• Remediation: Apply remedies, modify settings and work on the fortification of the architecture.
• Follow-Up: Ensure fix and verify that fix is correct & look for new vulnerability.

How Does Vulnerability Assessment Help?

It helps any organization safeguard itself from cyber attacks by identifying the loopholes in advance. Here are some threats that we can prevent if we use vulnerability assessment.

• Injection attacks like XSS and SQL injection
• Authentication faults that lead to unidentified access to important data
• Insecure settings and weak defaults

The Process of Vulnerability Assessment

The process of Vulnerability Assessment is divided into four stages. Let us discuss them one by one. 

• Testing or Vulnerability Identification: All the aspects of a system like networks, servers, and databases are checked for possible threats, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. The goal of this step is to get a list of all the possible loopholes in the security of the system. The testing is done through machines as well as manually and all parameters are kept in mind while doing so.
• Analysis: From the first step, we get a list of vulnerabilities. Then, it is time that these are analyzed in detail. The goal of this analysis is to identify where things went wrong so that rectification can be done easily. This step aims at finding the root cause of vulnerabilities.
• Risk Assessment: When there are many vulnerabilities, it becomes important to classify them on the basis of risks they might cause. The main objective of this step is to prioritize vulnerabilities on the basis of data and systems they might affect. It also gauges the severity of attacks and the damage they can cause.
• Rectification: Once if have a clear layout of the risks, their root cause, and their severity, we can start making corrections in the system. The fourth step aims at closing the gaps in security by introducing new security tools and measures.

Tools for Vulnerability Assessment

Manually testing an application for possible vulnerabilities might be a tedious job. There are some tools that can automatically scan the system for vulnerabilities. A few such tools include:

• Simulation tools that test web applications.
• Scanners that test network services and protocols.
• Network scanners that identify malicious packets and defects in IP addresses .

Advantages of Vulnerability Assessment

• Detect the weakness of your system before any data breach occurs.
• A list of all possible vulnerabilities for each device present in the system.
• Record of security for future assessments.

Disadvantages of Vulnerability Assessment

• Some advanced vulnerabilities might not be detected.
• Assessment tools might not give exact results.

This article helps one to understand that vulnerabilities assessment play an important role of establishing the areas that can be exploited within your information systems. In this way you will avoid information leaks, solve the problems with non-compliance to regulations, and in general improve the protection. The integration of other security measures alongside assessments guarantees the organization against cyber threats .

What is Vulnerability Assessment? – FAQs

How do a vulnerability assessment and a risk assessment differ.

Vulnerability assessment provides information on numerous flaws of a system while risk assessment determines severity of the vulnerability and the probability of it being exploited.

How precise should the assessments be and how often should they take place?

The vulnerabilities should be scanned at frequent intervals like at least quarterly, or annually and always after some system or software changes.

Are the vulnerability assessments adequate enough for achieving total and complete security?

No, vulnerability assessments are a part of a total security management. They should be accompanied by such strategies as penetration testing and continuous monitoring, for instance.

Is it possible to automate the vulnerability assessments?

To an extent, the procedures of vulnerability assessments can be automated to streamline work and increase the efficacy of particular tools; nevertheless, it is crucial to include a manual check of the data obtained by particular tools and platforms.

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What is a vulnerability assessment and how to conduct one.

Abi Tyas Tunggal

Vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying, classifying, and prioritizing security vulnerabilities in IT infrastructure. A comprehensive vulnerability assessment evaluates whether an IT system is exposed to known vulnerabilities, assigns severity levels to identified vulnerabilities, and recommends remediation or mitigation steps where required. 

Vulnerability assessments are a common security procedure as they provide a detailed view of the  security risks  an organization may face, enabling them to better protect their information technology and  sensitive data  from  cyber threats . 

Vulnerabilities can be found in applications managed by third-party vendors or internally made software, and many flaws are easily fixed once identified. 

Why is Vulnerability Assessment Important?

Vulnerability assessment is important because it provides you with information about the security weaknesses in your environment and provides direction on how to remediate or mitigate the issues before they can be exploited .

This process provides you with a better understanding of your IT infrastructure, security flaws and overall risk, which greatly improves information security and application security standards while reducing the likelihood that a cybercriminal will gain unauthorized access to your organization. 

What are the Different Types of Vulnerability Assessment?

There are several types of vulnerability assessment:

• Network-based assessment: Used to identify possible network security issues and can detect vulnerable systems on wired and wireless networks. 
• Host-based assessment: Used to locate and identify vulnerabilities in servers, workstations, and other network hosts. This scan typically examines open ports and services and can offer visibility into the configuration settings and patch management of scanned systems.
• Wireless network assessment: Used to scan Wi-Fi networks and  attack vectors  in the wireless network infrastructure. It can validate your company's network is securely configured to prevent unauthorized access and can also identify rogue access points.
• Application assessment: The identification of security vulnerabilities in web applications and their source code by using automated vulnerability scanning tools on the front-end or static/dynamic analysis of source code.
• Database assessment: The assessment of databases or big data systems for vulnerabilities and misconfiguration, identifying rogue databases or insecure dev/test environments, and classifying  sensitive data  to improve  data security .

What is the Security Vulnerability Assessment Process?

The security vulnerability process consists of five steps:

• Vulnerability identification:  Analyzing network scans, pen test results, firewall logs, and vulnerability scan results to find anomalies that suggest a  cyber attack  could take advantage of a vulnerability. 
• Vulnerability analysis:  Decide whether the identified vulnerability could be exploited and classify the severity of the exploit to understand the level of security risk.
• Risk assessment:  Assess which vulnerabilities will be mitigated or remediated first based on their  wormability  and other risks. 
• Remediation:  Update affected software or hardware where possible.
• Mitigation:  Decide on countermeasures and how to measure their effectiveness in the event that a patch is not available.

The vulnerability assessment process is a critical component of  vulnerability management  and IT risk management lifecycles and must be done on a regular basis to be effective.

For more information,  see our guide on vulnerability management .

1. Vulnerability Identification

Vulnerability identification is the process of discovering and making a complete list of vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure. 

This is generally achieved through a combination of automated vulnerability scanning and manual  penetration testing .

A vulnerability scanner can assess computers, networks or web applications for known vulnerabilities like those listed on  the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) . 

Vulnerability testing can be run via authenticated or unauthenticated scans:

• Authenticated scans:  Allow vulnerability scanners access networked resources using remote administrative protocols and authenticate using provided system credentials. The benefit of authenticated scans is that they provide access to low-level data such as specific services, configuration details and accurate information about operating systems, installed software, configuration issues,  access control , security controls and patch management.
• Unauthenticated scans:  Don't provide access to networked resources, which can result in false positives and unreliable information about operating systems and installed software. This type of scan is generally used by cyber attackers and IT security analysts to try and determine the security posture of externally facing assets,  third-party vendors  and to find possible  data leaks .

Learn how to identify vulnerable third-party software >

Like any security testing, vulnerability scanning isn't perfect which is why other techniques like penetration testing are used. Penetration testing is the practice of testing an information technology asset to find exploitable vulnerabilities and can be automated with software or performed manually. 

Whether run automatically or performed manually by a security team, pen testing can find security flaws and possible  attack vectors  that are missed by vulnerability scanning tools. It can also be used to test on-premise security controls, adherence to  information security policies , employees susceptibility to  social engineering attacks  like  phishing  or  spear phishing , as well as to test  incident response plans .  

2. Vulnerability Analysis

After vulnerabilities are identified, you need to identify which components are responsible for each vulnerability, and the root cause of the security weaknesses. For example, the root cause of the vulnerability could be an outdated version of an open-source library. 

In this situation, there is a clear path to remediation, upgrading the library. However, there isn't always a simple solution, which is why organizations often need to run each vulnerability through a security assessment process that classifies the severity of the vulnerability, identifies possible solutions, and decides whether to accept, remediate or mitigate the identified risk based on the organization's risk management strategy.

3. Risk Assessment

The objective of this step is to prioritize vulnerabilities. This often involves using a vulnerability assessment tool that assigns a rank or severity to each vulnerability. 

For example,  UpGuard BreachSight , an attack surface management tool, uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) scores to assign a numerical score from 0 to 10 based on the principal characteristics and severity of the vulnerability. 

With that said, any good vulnerability assessment report will take in additional factors such as:

• What system is affected
• What  sensitive data  is stored on the system, e.g.  personally identifiable information (PII)  or  protected health information (PHI)
• What business functions rely on the system
• The ease of attack or compromise
• The business impact of a successful exploit 
• Whether the vulnerability is accessible from the Internet or requires physical access
• How old the vulnerability is
• Any regulatory requirement your organization has, e.g.  CCPA ,  FISMA ,  GLBA ,  PIPEDA ,  LGPD ,  23 NYCRR 500 ,  FIPA , PCI DSS, HIPAA, or  the SHIELD Act
• The cost of a data breach in your industry

Read our guide on how to perform an IT cybersecurity risk assessment >

4. Remediation

Vulnerability remediation involves fixing any security issues that were deemed unacceptable in the risk assessment process. This is typically a joint effort between development,operations, compliance, risk management, and security teams, who decide on a cost-effective path to remediate each vulnerability.  

Many vulnerability management systems will provide recommended remediation techniques for common vulnerabilities, which can be as simple as installing readily-available security patches or as complex as replacing hardware.

Specific remediation steps will vary on the vulnerability but often include:

• Updating operational procedures
• Developing a robust  configuration management process
• Patching software

5. Mitigation

Not every vulnerability can be remediated, which is where mitigation comes in. Mitigation is focused on reducing the likelihood that a vulnerability can be exploited or reducing the impact of the exploit. 

Specific mitigation steps will vary greatly, depending on your risk tolerance and budget but often include:

• Introducing new security controls
• Replacing hardware or software
• Vendor risk management
• Attack surface management
• Continuous security monitoring

What Potential Threats Can Be Prevented by Vulnerability Assessment?

Examples of cyber attacks that can be prevented by vulnerability assessment include:

• Privilege escalation attacks:  Privilege escalation is the  exploitation  of a programming error,  vulnerability , design flaw, configuration oversight or  access control  in an operating system or application to gain unauthorized access to resources that are usually restricted from the application or user.  Read more about privilege escalation here . 
• SQL injections:  SQL injection attacks happen when invalidated or untrusted data is sent to a code interpreter through form input or another data submission field in a web application. Successful injection attacks can result in  data leaks , data corruption,  data breaches , loss of accountability, and denial of access.
• XSS attacks:  Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of  security vulnerability  typically found in web applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users and may be used to bypass  access control , such as the same-origin policy. The impact of XSS can range from a small nuisance to significant  cybersecurity risk , depending on the sensitivity of data handled by the vulnerable website, and the nature of any mitigations implemented.  Read more about cross-site scripting here . 
• Insecure defaults:  It's common for software and hardware to ship with insecure settings, such as easily guessable passwords, to make onboarding easier. While this is good from a usability perspective, many people leave these default configurations intact which can leave them exposed. 

What are the Different Types of Vulnerability Assessment Tools?

Vulnerability assessment tools are designed to automatically scan for new and existing threats in your IT infrastructure. Types of tools include:

• Web application scanners that map out the  attack surface  and simulate know attack vectors
• Protocol scanners that search for vulnerable protocols, ports, and other services
• Network scanners that help visualize networks and discover network vulnerabilities like stray IP addresses, spoofed packets, and suspicious packet generation

It's best practice to schedule regular, automated scans of all infrastructure and use the results as part of your ongoing vulnerability assessment process. 

UpGuard BreachSight will automatically scan your attack surface daily for vulnerabilities. 

What's the Difference Between Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing?

As noted above, a vulnerability assessment often includes penetration testing to identify vulnerabilities that might not be detected by automated scanning. This process is commonly referred to as vulnerability assessment/penetration testing (VAPT).

With that said, penetration testing alone isn't sufficient as a complete vulnerability assessment. Vulnerability assessment aims to uncover vulnerabilities and recommend the appropriate mitigation or remediation steps to reduce or remove the identified risk.

In contrast, penetration testing involves identifying vulnerabilities and attempting to exploit them to attack a system, cause a  data breach , or  expose sensitive data . While this can be carried out as part of a vulnerability assessment, the primary aim of penetration testing is to check whether a vulnerability exists that is exploitable. 

Read our full post on penetration testing for more information .

How UpGuard Can Help With Vulnerability Assessment

Companies like  Intercontinental Exchange ,  Taylor Fry ,  The New York Stock Exchange , IAG, First State Super, Akamai, Morningstar, and NASA use UpGuard's security ratings to protect their data,  prevent data breaches  and assess their security operations.

For the assessment of your information security controls,   UpGuard BreachSight  can monitor your organization for 70+ security controls providing a simple, easy-to-understand  cyber security rating  and automatically detect leaked credentials and data exposures in S3 buckets, Rsync servers, GitHub repos, and more.

The Vulnerabilities module of UpGuard BreachSight lists published vulnerabilities that may be exploitable in the software that is running on your IT infrastructure. These vulnerabilities are automatically identified through information exposed in HTTP headers and website content. 

Each identified vulnerability is given a CVSS, a published standard developed to capture the principal characteristics of a vulnerability, that produces a numerical score between 0 and 10 reflecting its severity.  

UpGuard Vendor Risk  can minimize the amount of time your organization spends assessing related and third-party  information security  controls by automating  vendor questionnaires  and providing  vendor questionnaire templates .

Our expertise has been featured in the likes of  The New York Times ,  The Wall Street Journal ,  Bloomberg ,  The Washington Post ,  Forbes ,  Reuters , and  TechCrunch.

You can read more about what our customers are saying on  Gartner reviews .

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Kaushik Sen

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Vulnerability Assessment: Types, Tools, And Processes

Discover how vulnerability scanning can protect/help your business-critical applications.

Vulnerability Assessment Explained

Vulnerability assessment is an evaluation method that enables organizations to review their systems for potential security weaknesses. It performs a vulnerability analysis process that aims to discover whether the organization is at risk of known vulnerabilities, assigns a level of severity to those vulnerabilities, and recommends whether a threat should be mitigated or remediated.

Vulnerability testing helps organizations discover whether their systems and software have active default settings that are insecure, which can include easily guessable admin passwords. It also assesses vulnerability to code injection attacks, such as  Structured Query Language injection (SQLi)  and  cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks , and checks for a potential escalation of user privileges or incorrect authentication mechanisms.

Types Of Vulnerability Assessments

The most common types of vulnerability assessments that organizations deploy are:

• Network-based scan : Identifies vulnerable systems on organizations’ wired and wireless networks , which could be used to launch security attacks against an organization’s networks.
• Host-based scan : Identifies potential vulnerabilities in hosts connecting to an organization’s network, such as critical servers and workstations. This vulnerability assessment also provides further visibility into configuration settings and the system’s patch history. 
• Wireless scan : Typically assesses an organization’s Wi-Fi connections to search for potential rogue access points (APs) and validate whether the network is configured securely. 
• Application scan : Tests an organization’s websites to search for known software vulnerabilities and weak configurations in web applications or networks.
• Database scan : Identifies weaknesses in databases and big data systems, such as misconfigurations, rogue databases, or insecure development environments, to protect organizations against potential malicious attacks. 

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FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report 2H 2023 shows Cybercriminals Exploiting New Industry Vulnerabilities 43% Faster than 1H 2023.

How Vulnerability Assessments Conducted: Steps And Processes

Organizations that undergo a vulnerability assessment will follow a four-step process. 

However, it is important to remember that a vulnerability assessment is not a one-off activity that organizations forget about when it has been completed. It must be repeated regularly and operationalized by encouraging development, security, and operations teams to cooperate closely with each other—a process called  DevSecOps .

Vulnerability identification

The first step is to create a comprehensive list of vulnerabilities in an organization’s applications, servers, and systems. This is done by either scanning them using specific internet vulnerability assessment tools or by testing them manually. Vulnerability analysts can also use vulnerability databases, vendor announcements, threat intelligence feeds, and asset management systems to identify potential weaknesses. 

This first step of the process helps organizations understand the full details. This includes elements like risk appetite and tolerance level, business impact analysis, mitigation practices and policies, countermeasures for devices and services, and residual risk treatment.

Vulnerability analysis

The second step aims to discover the source and initial cause of the vulnerabilities identified in the first step. The analysis stage identifies the system components responsible for each vulnerability as well as its root cause.

Remediation

The final step in the vulnerability assessment process is to close any security gaps. This is usually a joint effort between the DevSecOps team, which sets out the most effective way to mitigate or remediate each vulnerability discovered. The remediation process includes introducing new cybersecurity measures, procedures, or tools; updating configuration and operational changes; and developing or implementing patches for identified vulnerabilities.

With the process completed, it is also vital for organizations to create a vulnerability assessment report. This needs to include recommendations on how to correct and mitigate vulnerabilities, risk mitigation techniques, and any gaps the assessment uncovers between the results and the organization’s system baseline. 

The report needs to include the name of the vulnerabilities, the date they were discovered, and the score attributed based on the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database. It also needs to include a detailed description of vulnerabilities, systems affected, processes required to correct vulnerabilities, and a proof of concept of the vulnerability.

What Are The Different Types Of Vulnerability Assessment Tools?

Organizations can discover new and known vulnerabilities through specific vulnerability assessment tools. They should schedule regular and automated scans of their critical IT systems, and ensure the results of the scans are fed into their ongoing vulnerability assessment operation. 

Fortinet vulnerability scanner

One of the most popular tools for vulnerability assessments is a web application scanner, such as the Fortinet Web Vulnerability Scanner (FortiADC) . These tools scan, test, and simulate attack patterns of known vulnerabilities.

Protocol scanners and more

Protocol scanners can also be used to assess vulnerabilities. These are specifically designed to search for vulnerable network services, ports, and cybersecurity protocols. The other most common tool for vulnerability assessment purposes is a network scanner, which can be used to visualize organizations’ networks. It is also useful for discovering warning signs of vulnerabilities, such as insecure Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and spoofed or suspicious packet activity.

In addition, organizations should consider using plugins within the vulnerability assessment platform, such as scans of common and popular ports, firewalls, and content management systems (CMS), such as Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress.

Vulnerability Assessment FAQs

Why is vulnerability assessment important, how to conduct vulnerability assessment.

A vulnerability assessmsnt involves a number of steps including vulnerability identification, vulnerability analysis and remediation.

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What Is Vulnerability Assessment? Benefits, Tools, and Process

Vulnerability assessment.

• Vulnerability Management: 4 Steps to Successful Remediation
• What Is Vulnerability Assessment? Benefits, Tools, Process
• 5-Step Security Risk Assessment Process
• What Is Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures Glossary (CVE)?
• Vulnerability Management System

What Is a Vulnerability Assessment?

8 Minute Read

A vulnerability assessment helps identify, classify, and prioritize vulnerabilities in network infrastructure, computer systems, and applications. A vulnerability is a security weaknesses that might expose the organization to cyber threats or risks. Vulnerability assessments often employ automated testing tools such as network security scanners, showing the results in a vulnerability assessment report.

Organizations facing ongoing cyber attacks can greatly benefit from regular vulnerability assessments. Threat actors constantly look for vulnerabilities they can exploit to breach applications, systems, and possibly entire networks. New vulnerabilities are discovered all the time in existing software and hardware components, and organizations also introduce new components on a regular basis. A vulnerability assessment coupled with a vulnerability management program can help identify and fix security weaknesses and improve security posture.

This is part of an extensive series of guides about hacking .

In this article:

The Importance of Vulnerability Assessment

Types of vulnerability assessment tools.

• Initial Preparation
• Vulnerability Assessment Testing
• Prioritize Vulnerabilities
• Create a Vulnerability Assessment Report
• Continuous Vulnerability Assessment

The most common security vulnerabilities are rooted either in technology issues or user behavior:

• Breaches can occur if insiders accidentally expose information to an external source or leak information intentionally (i.e., malicious insiders).
• Lost and stolen devices that contain unencrypted data are also a major vector for infiltration into a company’s network.
• Cybercriminals can install malware on target systems to exfiltrate data or gain control over computing systems.

Vulnerability management helps companies prevent data breaches and leaks, but it requires continuous vigilance. The process is ongoing and involves conducting periodic vulnerability assessments - when one assessment completes, another must begin.

Vulnerability assessments allow security teams to identify, analyze, categorize, report, and remediate security vulnerabilities in operating systems, business applications, endpoint devices, and browsers.

Organizations discover thousands of new vulnerabilities each year, requiring constant patching and reconfiguration to protect their networks, applications, and operating systems. However, many companies lack an effective patch management strategy and don’t apply the necessary patches in time to prevent a breach.

It is impractical to patch all vulnerabilities immediately. A vulnerability management system helps prioritize vulnerabilities and ensure the security team addresses high-risk vulnerabilities first.  Vulnerability management encompasses the tooling and processes needed to find and remediate the most critical vulnerabilities regularly.

Modern vulnerability assessments rely on automated scanning tools. Here are the main categories of tools used to scan an environment for vulnerabilities:

• Network-based scanning —used to identify potential network security attacks. This type of scan can also detect vulnerable systems on wired or wireless networks.
• Host-based scanning —used to identify vulnerabilities on servers, workstations, or other network hosts. This type of scan looks for vulnerable open ports and services, providing insights about the configuration settings and patch history of scanned systems.
• Wireless network scans —used to scan an organization's Wi-Fi network to identify security weaknesses. These scans can identify malicious access points and ensure that wireless networks are configured securely.
• Application scans —used to test websites and mobile applications for known software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
• Database scans —used to identify vulnerabilities that might allow database-specific attacks like SQL and NoSQL injection, as well as general vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in a database server.

5-Step Vulnerability Assessment Process

1. initial preparation.

In this stage, the team decides the scope and goals of vulnerability testing. This involves:

• Identifying protected assets and equipment and mapping out all endpoints.
• Determining the business value of each asset and the impact if it is attacked.
• Identifying access controls and other security requirements of each system.
• Determining if systems hold sensitive data, and how sensitive data is transferred between systems.
• Recording a baseline of services, processes, and open ports on protected assets.
• Determining operating systems and software deployed on assets.

This information can help security teams understand the attack surfaces and the most severe threat scenarios, and develop a remediation strategy.

2. Vulnerability Assessment Testing

In this stage, the team runs automated vulnerability scans on target devices and environments. If necessary, they use manual tools to investigate the security posture of a system.

In order to automate this stage and make it more efficient, teams will typically rely on one or more vulnerability databases, vendor security advisories, and threat Intelligence feeds.

A single test can take anywhere from a minute to several hours, depending on the size of the target system and the type of scan.

3. Prioritize Vulnerabilities

At this stage, the team removes false positives from vulnerability scanning results and prioritize vulnerabilities according to several factors. These can include:

• Severity score provided by a vulnerability database
• The business impact if a vulnerability is exploited
• Sensitive data that might be at risk
• The ease of exploiting the vulnerability
• How long the vulnerability has been in place
• The ability to perform lateral movement from this system to other sensitive systems
• The availability of a patch and the effort needed to deploy it

4. Create a Vulnerability Assessment Report

At this stage, the team creates a unified report showing vulnerabilities found in all protected assets, with a plan for remediating them.

For medium to high risk vulnerabilities, the report should provide information about the vulnerability, when it was discovered, which systems it affects, the potential damage if attackers exploit it, and the plan and effort required to remediate it.

Where possible, the team should also provide a proof of concept (PoC) demonstrating how each critical vulnerability could be exploited.

5. Continuous Vulnerability Assessment

Vulnerability scans provide a point-in-time snapshot of vulnerabilities that exist in an organization's digital infrastructure. However, new deployments, configuration changes, newly discovered vulnerabilities, and other factors can result in new vulnerabilities. Because vulnerabilities are not static, vulnerability management should also be a continuous process.

Software development teams should incorporate automated vulnerability assessment into their continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. This allows vulnerabilities to be identified and fixed as early as possible in the software development lifecycle (SDLC), eliminating the need to develop and release patches for vulnerable code.

However, because this process cannot catch all vulnerabilities, and many vulnerabilities occur in legacy or third-party systems, it must be complemented by continuous vulnerability scans of production systems.

In this article, we explained the basics of vulnerability assessment, covered the main tools that can be used to identify vulnerabilities, including network scanning, host scanning, and application scanning, and presented a 5-step process for managing vulnerability assessments in your organization:

• Initial preparation - defining scope and goals of vulnerability testing.
• Vulnerability testing - running automated tests to identify vulnerabilities in systems included in the scope.
• Prioritize vulnerabilities - identify which vulnerabilities are important and require attention, and their possible business impact.
• Create vulnerability assessment report - produce a plan detailing the medium and high priority vulnerabilities found and recommended remediations.
• Continuous vulnerability assessment - scanning for vulnerabilities on a continuous basis to see if previous vulnerabilities were remediated and discover new ones.

Learn More About Vulnerability Assessment

Vulnerability Management: 4 Steps to Successful Remediation Vulnerability management is the practice of identifying, analyzing, and remediating hardware or software defects that attackers can exploit to carry out cyber attacks.Understand the basics of vulnerability management and discover a 4-step process to protecting your organization against harmful vulnerabilities.

Read more: Vulnerability Management: 4 Steps to Successful Remediation

What is Vulnerability Scanning? Vulnerability scanning uses an application (vulnerability scanner) to scan for security weaknesses in computers, networks, and other communications equipment in a system. Learn how vulnerability scanning works, why you need to do it, and how to do it right.

Read more: What is Vulnerability Scanning?

Vulnerability Testing and Best Techniques for Assessing Risks Vulnerability testing, also known as vulnerability assessment, evaluates an entire system to look for security weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Curious about vulnerability testing techniques? We explain processes such as vulnerability assessments, vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing.

Read more: Vulnerability Testing and Best Techniques for Assessing Risks

Vulnerability Remediation: A Step-by-Step Guide Vulnerability remediation is the process of addressing system security weaknesses. Are you wondering about vulnerability remediation? We give you a step-by-step guide to addressing vulnerabilities in your system.

Read more: Vulnerability Remediation: A Step-by-Step Guide . 

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