What is the difference between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing?

Cyber Security
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  • The terms Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing are both different, but serve an essential function of protecting the network environment.
  • Vulnerability Assessment: It’s a process to define, detect, and prioritize the vulnerabilities in computer systems, network infrastructure, applications, etc., and gives the organization the required information to fix the flaws.
    *Penetration Testing: It is also called pen testing or ethical hacking. It’s a process of testing a network, system, application, etc. to identify vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit. In the context of web application security, it is most widely used to augment a web application firewall (WAF).

Vulnerability scans look for known vulnerabilities in your systems and report potential exposures. Penetration tests are intended to exploit weaknesses in the architecture of your IT network and determine the degree to which a malicious attacker can gain unauthorized access to your assets.
A vulnerability scan is an automated, high-level test that looks for and reports potential vulnerabilities. A penetration test is a detailed hands-on examination by a real person that tries to detect and exploit weaknesses in your system.
Penetration testing and vulnerability scanning are often confused for the same service. The problem is, business owners purchase one when they really need the other. Let me explain pentesting vs. vulnerability scanning.

A vulnerability scan is an automated, high-level test that looks for and reports potential vulnerabilities. A penetration test is a detailed hands-on examination by a real person that tries to detect and exploit weaknesses in your system.
Also known as vulnerability assessments, vulnerability scans assess computers, systems, and networks for security weaknesses, also known as vulnerabilities. These scans are typically automated and give a beginning look at what could possibly be exploited.

High-quality vulnerability scans can search for over 50,000 vulnerabilities and are required as per PCI DSS, FFIEC, and GLBA mandates.

Vulnerability scans can be instigated manually or run on a scheduled basis, and will complete in as little as several minutes to as long as several hours.

Vulnerability scans are a passive approach to vulnerability management, because they don’t go beyond reporting on vulnerabilities that are detected. It’s up to the business owner or their IT staff to patch weaknesses on a prioritized basis, or confirm that a discovered vulnerability is a false positive, then rerun the scan.

A penetration test simulates a hacker attempting to get into a business system through hands-on research and the exploitation of vulnerabilities. Actual analysts, often called ethical hackers, search for vulnerabilities and then try to prove that they can be exploited. Using methods like password cracking, buffer overflow, and SQL injection, they attempt to compromise and extract data from a network in a non damaging way.

Penetration tests are an extremely detailed and effective approach to finding and remediating vulnerabilities in software applications and networks. A good way to illustrate the benefits of a penetration test would be to use an analogy from the medical world. When something is wrong inside your body you can go get an X-ray to help diagnose your problem. The image produced by a simple X-ray machine can detect an obvious break in bone structure but is fuzzy and not good for seeing soft tissue damage. If you really want to find out in detail what might be going on inside a body, you need to have an MRI done that results in a detailed 3D model of bone and soft tissues together. That is similar to the difference between a simple vulnerability scan (fuzzy X-ray) and a penetration test (detailed MRI). If you really want to find deep issues in your application or network, you need a penetration test. And if you modify your systems and software over time, a regular penetration test is a great way to ensure continued security.

Both tests work together to encourage optimal network and application security. Vulnerability scans are great weekly, monthly, or quarterly insight into your network security (the quick X-ray), while penetration tests are a very thorough way to deeply examine your network security (the periodic detailed MRI). Yes, penetration tests are expensive, but you are paying a professional to examine every nook and cranny of your business the way a real world attacker would, to find a possibility of compromise.