Vulnerability Assessment: Limitations and how to solve them

As much as vulnerability assessment has become a crucial aspect of cybersecurity in today’s day and age, it is not the perfect solution. Vulnerability assessment is definitely essential to an organization’s security and helps identify weaknesses in a network system. However, like any other tool, vulnerability assessment has its own inherent weaknesses.

Vulnerability assessment companies like WebSecure understand the implications of such issues. For the benefit of companies and individuals who avail such services, the limitations of vulnerability assessment tools will be addressed in the following lines.

1. The ones that got away

Vulnerability assessment scans will not always reveal all possible flaws and weaknesses in the system. This is due to either the vulnerability not being known to the scanner or the vulnerability being too complex for an automated scanner to unravel.

• Unclear implications

Even if the scan reveals vulnerabilities, it can be difficult to interpret the results. Technical know-how and expertise is required to translate reports into effective resolutions. This is why WebSecure maintains a panel of experts who can read between the lines.

• False positives

Due to the complex nature of today’s networks and cybersecurity, vulnerability assessment scans can sometimes come across something suspicious and flag them as vulnerabilities when they are clearly not.

• Update infinity

This point relates to the first limitation of vulnerability assessment tools. Constant updates are required to ensure that the latest exploits or vulnerabilities can be identified during scans.

Even with such limitations, one should never discount the effectiveness of vulnerability assessment. Constant scans can negate a majority of the listed limitations. According to WebSecure experts, all the weaknesses inherent to scanning tools can be addressed one way or another.

Keeping vulnerability assessment tools updated is the easiest way to avoid any mishaps when running a scan. An updated scanner will be able to identify more vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Additionally, the number of false positives reported will also decrease. Although most tools in use nowadays are automated, the presence of an expert team to monitor and interpret results is vital. Vulnerability assessment by itself is ineffective unless it is paired with professionals who can make heads or tails of the resulting reports.