Automated vulnerability scanning

A vulnerability scan is an automated process that simply scans for known vulnerabilities. By contrast, a penetration test is where a security researcher uses their experience, insight and ingenuity to exploit flaws and misconfigurations in an attempt to compromise systems any way they can. A penetration test often starts off with a vulnerability scan as its first stage.

As penetration tests are more in-depth, they’re typically conducted less frequently. However, new security vulnerabilities are disclosed all the time, so regular VA scanning makes sure your systems are still patched against the latest threats.

The frequency of vulnerability scanning should be dictated by your security and risk management strategies, but industry best practices generally recommend monthly, or on significant change to your infrastructure. Increasingly, customers are upping the scan frequency to weekly. No matter how often you scan, the Bulletproof portal makes it quick and easy to manage your scanning regime.

Absolutely. Bulletproof’s VA Scan Report shows you the vulnerabilities it detects and also lets you know the exploits that are available for it. Our reports also rank each security weaknesses according to the CVSS standard and let you know its severity.

It’s best practice to use an up-to-date scanner to detect current and recently discovered vulnerabilities, and to generate clear reports for internal and external SOC and IT departments. Bulletproof’s vulnerability scanning tools show you what you need to fix straight away and ranks each threat in order of severity to help you and your team prioritise tasks. Vulnerability scanning is a valuable tool to have in your armoury, however you should not expect it to detect every vulnerability. VA scans are automated and only flag known vulnerabilities, and the growing sophistication of attacks mean that automated tools simply cannot detect complex vulnerabilities. In contrast, penetration tests go one step further and involve a human element that strengthens your business’s chances of identifying weaknesses which is why best practice involves running vulnerability scanning and penetration testing together to identify and mitigate security threats

VA scans, or vulnerability scans, are sometimes sold as automated penetration tests by other cyber security vendors. Despite both VA scans and penetration tests being key security tools, they are different, and are used to achieve different security objectives. Vulnerability scans are a great way to stay on top of newly discovered security flaws in an automated and continuous way, whereas penetration tests are more in-depth engagements that use human insight and ingenuity to uncover security weaknesses that VA scans alone never could.

Free scans are available, but they require a lot of upfront investment in time and expertise to be set-up and configured correctly. If scan isn’t set up right, you won’t get the value from it. By contrast, the Bulletproof VA scanning portal has been designed to make scan management quick and easy. Spend more time improving your security and less time installing, configuring, maintaining and managing scanning engines.

The speed at which security weaknesses can be found with vulnerability scanning tools surpasses that of human capability, which is why a VA scan is an effective approach to finding vulnerabilities across your systems and applications. Vulnerability scanning can be used to detect any known potential security flaws and weaknesses to help find and fix gaps in your security setup. It can also help to identify and mitigate those vulnerabilities that could lead to data breaches or other cyber-attacks, and indicate when you need to upgrade your security software.

A vulnerability scanning tool is software that scans computer systems and log data to detect vulnerabilities and security breaches within a network. The tools generate alerts and reports for security operations and IT teams, suggesting ways to fix vulnerabilities discovered during the scan such as malware or network configuration flaws. It’s important to understand the capabilities of vulnerability scanning tools to ensure your business does not fall short of providing adequate protection against cyber threats, and as vulnerability scanners are automated, you should not expect it to detect every vulnerability as new and undetected threats emerge. Carrying out ad hoc penetration tests is recommended alongside regular vulnerability scanning to find and fix any threats that have not been picked up by the scanner.