Vulnerability Assessment and Methodology: What can you expect from it?

The purpose of carrying out vulnerability assessment is to ensure complete protection of organizations from vulnerabilities. It not only identifies security loopholes within IT applications and infrastructure, but also offers the solution to fix the same. 

All the components are robustly scanned through this process, which may be either carried out by a security expert or network security admin. A vulnerability assessment can be classified into three broad types, depending on the areas of infrastructure: 

External Scans: When the components of the IT ecosystem, which directly face the internet and are accessible to external user are scanned, it is called external scanning. They include ports, networks, websites, etc.

Internal Scans: Looking for loopholes in the internal network of an organization that could potentially damage the enterprise network is called internal scanning. 

Environmental Scans: It looks after the specified operational technology of an organization, including cloud services, IoT, etc. 

The Methodology of Vulnerability assessment 

Following steps are included in the vulnerability assessment methodology:

Planning: In order to assess the bugs, initial planning involves the process of identifying a specific area of the organization’s IT infrastructure.

Scanning: Looking for potential security vulnerabilities, flaws, exploitable bugs, etc., through manual or automated scanning. 

Analysis: It involves the process to analyse detected vulnerabilities for their impact, while also suggesting remedies for the same.

Remediation: Introducing product updates or system upgrades to fix glitches with various security measures in place. 

Common Vulnerability scanning methods

Web Application Scanning: It involves identifying known vulnerabilities in the app architecture by scanning web applications. 

Network Scanning: To identify potential security flaws, wired or wireless networks are scanned and the required remedy is given.

Build Assessments: Analysing software builds for security and performance bugs that may cause trouble later.

Database Assessments: Preventing data breaches by identifying security weaknesses in the databases.

Hot-based Scanning: It includes running scans on workstations, servers and network.

In order to ensure the inclusive security of their IT infrastructure, it is important for big and small enterprises to consider vulnerability assessment from time to time. It helps firms build a credible stance while protecting them from malicious attacks.