Vulnerability assessment is known as vulnerability analysis which is the process of recognizing, analyzing and ranking vulnerabilities in computers and other related systems to equip the IT personnel and management team with adequate knowledge about prevailing threats in the environment. With appropriate information in hand, the risk factors can rightly be understood, and the required measures can be defined competently without any delay.

Importance of Vulnerability Assessment

Vulnerability assessment provides deep insights on security deficiencies in an environment and helps to evaluate a system’s vulnerability to a specific threat and the evolving ones. Simply put, an organization can fully understand the security flaws, overall risk, and assets that are vulnerable to cyber security breaches. To stay protected and to counter surprise attacks, a thorough vulnerability assessment can fix the unattended security issues.

Primary Benefits:

• Identify known security exposures before attackers find them.
• Create an inventory of all the devices on the network, including purpose and system information. This also includes vulnerabilities associated with a specific device.
• Create an inventory of all devices in the enterprise to help with the planning of upgrades and future assessments.
• Define the level of risk that exists on the network.
• Establish a business risk/benefit curve and optimize security investments.

Types of Vulnerability Assessments

Basically, a vulnerability assessment applies various methods, tools, and scanners to find out grey areas, threats, and risks. Everything depends on how well the weakness in the given systems is discovered to attend to that specific need. Find below different types of vulnerability assessment scans:

Network-based scans
Going by the name, it helps identify possible network security attacks. The scan helps zero-in the vulnerable systems on wired or wireless networks.

Host-based scans
Server workstations or other network hosts vulnerabilities are easily identified using these scans. In the process, ports and services are examined vigorously. It also provides excellent visibility into the configuration settings and patch history of scanned systems.

Wireless network scans
Wireless network infrastructure is scanned to identify vulnerabilities, it helps in validating a company’s network.

Application Scans
It is used to test websites to discover all known software vulnerabilities.

Database Scans
Database Scans aid in identifying grey areas in a database to prevent vicious attacks by cybercriminals.