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What Is Vulnerability Scanning?

Picture of Gabriela Silk By   ·  5 minute read

Vulnerability scanning is the automated detection of security weaknesses in software, systems, and networks. It evaluates IT and network assets, enabling organizations to identify and address potential threats.

From 2021 to 2023, there was a 72% increase in the number of data breaches recorded. Cybersecurity attacks have left companies of all sizes devastated over data losses and subsequent financial and legal fallouts. The mistake that companies often make is setting up a cybersecurity system and then leaving it as is, forgetting that like any piece of security, it needs to be checked regularly for possible points of failure.

One of the best ways to mitigate against potential threats is with vulnerability scanning. Not only does this process flag potential risks, but it enables organizations to build a stronger, more nimble security approach that’s always one step ahead.

 

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What is Vulnerability Scanning? 

Very few cybersecurity systems are impenetrable from the first implementation, and certainly none remain impenetrable forever. Technology develops, adversaries become more advanced, and over time, cracks develop in even the best cybersecurity systems—unless, of course, companies implement risk mitigation strategies such as vulnerability scanning.

Vulnerability scanning involves the deployment of automated checks across cybersecurity systems to detect weaknesses in their networks, software, and systems. The regular monitoring of an organization's most crucial telemetry ensures that security risks are flagged and remediated before attackers can exploit them.

 

How Vulnerability Scanning Works

Vulnerability scanning follows a 3-step structure:

  • Identification and Inventory: Every organization will have its own combination of devices and systems comprising its security defense. The initial step in vulnerability scanning is about identifying and creating an inventory of these parts.

  • Detection and Analysis: Vulnerability scanning software uses a baseline of known risks and vulnerabilities to check systems against. The software will not only run through the full inventory and detect potential weak points but categorize them based on how significant they are. This provides organizations with a priority list of where to focus attention first.

  • Remediation and Continuous Monitoring: While the scanning software won’t perform the actual fixes, it should always be used after updates have been made to check that they’ve worked as intended. The next step is to implement continuous monitoring and scanning to catch any further vulnerabilities. This is how organizations can best ensure that their security measures remain resilient and don’t become obsolete.

 

What are Security Vulnerabilities?

Any weakness in the structure, function, or implementation of an IT asset or network, a security vulnerability is anything a threat actor can exploit to gain unauthorized access or cause harm to an organization’s network, users, or business.

Common Vulnerabilities:

  • Coding Flaws: Examples of this include the mishandling of user inputs by web applications, leaving them susceptible to cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and other injection attacks.

  • Unprotected Open Ports: When left unprotected, hackers can use ports on laptops, servers, and other endpoints to spread malware.

  • Misconfigurations: This could include cloud storage buckets with inappropriate access permissions that expose sensitive data to the public internet, accidentally allowing unrestricted file uploads, or having overly permissive controls that allow unauthorized users to modify data.

  • Bad Cybersecurity Hygiene: Weak passwords, missing patches, and outdated software. 

    For a consistently updated searchable catalog of known security vulnerabilities (thousands are discovered every month), see NIST and CISA’s accounting:

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln 

https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog 

 

What Vulnerability Scanning Reveals

Vulnerability scanning is designed to reveal when any of the above have exposed an organization to attackers and how severe the risks are. For example, it will show not only if the software is out of date but just how outdated it is. Doing this provides organizations with a clear map of their vulnerabilities and where to begin improving their cybersecurity posture.

 

Why Vulnerability Scanning Matters and the Benefits

  • Better Protection Against Attackers: Vulnerability scanning ensures early risk identifications so organizations can fix issues before hackers exploit them.

  • Regulatory Compliance: Many regulatory bodies will fine organizations that don’t perform regular vulnerability scans. An example of this can be seen within the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), which mandates that organizations that handle cardholder data undergo quarterly scans.

  • Saves Organizations Money: Besides regulatory fines, vulnerability scanning also saves money by helping to prevent costly breaches.

  • Boosts Reputation: Nothing harms an organization’s reputation like a bad data leak. Vulnerability scans boost organizations’ security reputations by keeping them ahead of issues, rather than acting reactively.

  • Validate Security Fixes: As with any IT update, it’s easy to accidentally add a problem while fixing another. Vulnerability scanning works to prevent this by checking each remediation after it’s been introduced.

  • Strengthens Overall Security: The inventory of cybersecurity assets that vulnerability scanning affords is a benefit for organizations. It provides a better picture of the security environment and ensures a stronger approach from a holistic standpoint. It’s far easier for companies to manage their protection strategies when they have a clear view of all the moving parts. Additionally, bad actors also use vulnerability scanning, so ensuring an organization repeatedly undergoes vulnerability scans makes them that much more viable against those potentially doing the same to harm them.

 

How Vulnerability Scanning is Used

Each organization has its own needs and concerns that vulnerability scanning can be adjusted to suit. Some will focus on specific assets, such as the cloud, while others are suited to particular platforms such as websites or SaaS apps.

Here are some of the different forms that vulnerability scanning can take:

  • Network Vulnerability Scanning: Routers, firewalls, switches, and other aspects of network infrastructure are all scanned for potential weaknesses. 

  • Web Application Vulnerability Scanning: Earlier, we mentioned that SQL and XSS issues are often used as attack points by hackers targeting web applications. Scanning software designed for web applications is particularly adept at identifying these and other common risk factors.

  • Database Vulnerability Scanning: This type of scanner assesses database management systems and highlights anything that could potentially lead to breaches.

  • Host Vulnerability Scanning: Servers, hosts, and other individual hosts are scanned for security gaps that might make unauthorized access easier.

 

Different Types of Vulnerability Scans

There are multiple positions from which vulnerability scanning software can approach systems. Here are the different types:

  • Active Scanning: Direct probes are sent into systems and devices, resulting in an in-depth look at any security gaps. However, this approach requires significant bandwidth and is thus best suited to periodic rather than continuous scanning.

  • Passive Scanning: This vulnerability scan takes a nonintrusive approach by monitoring network traffic for unprotected communication channels, outdated software, and data flows. Due to its nonintrusiveness, passive scanning won’t provide the details of an active scan, but it can run continuously without impacting network performance. Passive scanning is limited in scope and has the potential to miss internal misconfigurations or vulnerabilities that are not detectable through network traffic analysis.

  • Internal Scanning: As the name suggests, this type of scanning focuses on internal networks. Everything behind the firewall is fair game.

  • External Scanning: This looks at internet and public-facing systems such as the cloud, web servers, and open ports.

  • Unauthenticated Scanning: These scans assume the position of an outside hacker and consider vulnerabilities that might allow someone to get into a system without login credentials.

  • Authenticated Scanning: By going in with proper authentication, these scans take a much deeper look than the above. They’re able to scan through file systems and issues with user privileges that wouldn’t be evident from the outside.

 

Vulnerability Scanning Vs. Penetration Testing

Vulnerability scanning is automated and performed continually to identify and report potential security gaps. Penetration testing, on the other hand, is a simulated cyberattack. It might use some automated software, but it’s a far more hands-on process and thus only done manually. It’s also slower as a result.

From a cybersecurity standpoint, both are vital. Vulnerability scanning offers quick, continuous monitoring, while penetration testing can take things more in-depth and give color to a vulnerability scan’s findings. Both are distinct but related forms of network security testing, and while vulnerability scanning and penetration testing have different functions, security teams often use both to complement one another.

 

The Challenges of Vulnerability Scanning

Three main challenges tend to arise with vulnerability scanning:

  1. It can only report on vulnerabilities that were apparent during the scan and can’t provide a “live” view of developing weaknesses.
  2. The most comprehensive scans require special access which some organizations aren’t comfortable granting.
  3. They typically focus on known vulnerabilities, and if that database isn’t updated regularly enough, can lead to newer issues being missed. Examples of this are unknown vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit, such as zero-day exploits.

 

Vulnerability Scanning and Prescient Security

Our vulnerability scanning process starts with a comprehensive and automated inventory of all systems, ensuring every aspect of an organization's network is accounted for. From there, a detailed approach to identify and address vulnerabilities is employed that includes a critical detailed assessment, database comparison, and the pinpointing of systems with most critical vulnerabilities.

 

Click here to learn how your organization can leverage vulnerability scanning as a strategic security asset.