Security Assessment vs. Vulnerability Scanning: Guide

Vulnerability scanning and security assessment are two important methods to test your system or network for vulnerabilities.

While the two terms are often used interchangeably with each other, they are actually very different. Although both are cybersecurity techniques designed to identify vulnerabilities, they are performed in very different ways and have different purposes from each other.

In short, vulnerability scanning is an automated high-level test that is designed to quickly identify and report potential vulnerabilities. A pentest, on the other hand, is a manual, detailed examination by a human employee that simulates a real-life attack by a hacker that tries to ‘penetrate’ your system, hence the name.

In this guide, we will dive a little deeper and discuss all you need to know about pentesting vs vulnerability scanning, as well as other things you may need to know about vulnerability scanning and security assessment. By the end of this guide, you’d have learned about:

What is vulnerability scanning?
What is security assessment?
Pros & Cons of Each
Malicious Vulnerability Scanning & How to Defend Against it

What is vulnerability scanning?

Vulnerability scanning, aka “vulnerability assessment”, is a high-level system scan designed to be performed regularly. While vulnerability scans can be performed manually by real humans, typically the process is automated and completely performed by software programs or bots.

Since it is designed as a quick, high-level scan, vulnerability scanning is solely focused on finding potential vulnerabilities, and it doesn’t go beyond reporting potential vulnerabilities, so it won’t validate whether the vulnerability is real, what potential threats it could cause, etc.

Vulnerability scanning will only generate reports listing the identified vulnerabilities, and the organization that performed the vulnerability scanning effort must perform other initiatives to validate and fix the vulnerabilities identified.

While businesses might consider how to prevent (malicious) vulnerability scanning, you can also leverage your own vulnerability scanning initiatives to generate useful reports on a regular basis. Vulnerability scanning can be scheduled regularly, for example, once a month, or initiated manually when needed.

What happens after a vulnerability scan?

After a vulnerability scan has been completed, the vulnerability scanner tool should generate a detailed report (or, if vulnerability scanning is performed manually, then the person must create the report).

This report should list the vulnerabilities identified and insights into what the user should do to fix the vulnerability. Depending on the vulnerability scanner solution used, the report may also include references for further research on each vulnerability identified.

Due to the nature of the vulnerability scanning process that is designed to be a quick scan that should be performed frequently, the report can sometimes include false positives: the scan identifies a vulnerability or a threat that isn’t actually there. Therefore, users should sift through a vulnerability scanning report to validate each vulnerability and threat to make sure they are valid. This is also why security assessment should also be performed to complement the vulnerability scanning process so false positives can be identified during the pentesting process.

However, an advanced vulnerability scanning tool may offer a more detailed report that will rank different vulnerabilities into different risk groups (i.e. high, medium, low), or use a scoring system so you can prioritize your sifting process to the riskiest threats first.

What is pentesting?

Pentesting, short for “security assessment”, is a manual, in-depth evaluation of an IT infrastructure. In security assessment, a human tester (usually a security expert) simulates how an attacker may target your system from the outside. The tester will perform hands-on research, trying to identify and exploit vulnerabilities (with safety measures).

In pentesting, the tester may try to identify vulnerabilities in various areas of your system: OS, network devices, applications, services flaws, misconfigurations, and even risky user behaviors that can be exploited. For example, a security assessment may attempt a phishing attack on your employees, as well as automated attacks like brute force attacks, SQL injection, and so on.

Once they have successfully exploited vulnerabilities, these testers may also attempt to use the compromised entity to launch subsequent exploits at other assets, with an attempt to achieve deeper access (by getting higher levels of security clearance) to the whole system and digital information.

While intrusion testing can be automated, it is very rare. One of the key aspects that differentiate vulnerability scanning and security assessment is the human factor: pentesting is typically performed manually by a human expert, often called an “ethical hacker”. We can think of security assessment as trying to see if your car is safe from car thefts by trying to break into your car yourself.

Pentesting is more in-depth and obviously will provide more insights into the state of your security compared to vulnerability scanning, but it will require more resources to perform, including time and money.

Security assessment: More Expensive, But More Comprehensive

A professional-grade pentesting can cost above $15,000, and there are specialist companies that charge upwards of $70,000.

The cost of a security assessment service, however, can vary depending on the following factors:

Methodology

Different pentesting services offer different methodologies. Some may use more expensive tools which may result in higher costs. It’s crucial, however, to remember that the better the tools and methods used, the better the quality of the pentesting results, and the faster the time required.

Types

There are several different types of security assessment services. Some pentesters may offer a comprehensive package, or you can also opt just to get one or more of these:

Social Engineering: the pentester will attempt to make your employees reveal sensitive information (passwords, sensitive data, etc.). The test can be performed over the phone or by email, as well as other means.

Physical Security Testing: Testing physical network devices and access points for the possibility of any security breach.

Client-Side: Identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in client-side programs.

Wireless Security Test: Discovers unsecured Wi-Fi networks and attempts attacks through them.

Network Services Test: One of the most common security assessment types, the pentester attempts to identify the openings in the network and check what kind of vulnerabilities can be exploited.

Attack Surface Covered

Different testers may offer different specialties, but typically an average pen tester will cover the following areas:

Front-end web technologies (HTML, Javascript)
Remote access attacks
SQL injection vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities related to web applications (PHP, Python applications)
APIs (SOAP, restful, etc.)
Firewalls, IDS, switches, routers, and various other network devices
Vulnerabilities related to networking protocols (TCP/UDP)
Scripting languages like Python or Perl
Misconfigurations in Operating Systems (Windows, Linus, macOS)

System Architecture

The more complex your system/network architecture is, and the more devices involved, the more expensive the security assessment cost will be. A more complex system will require more time and labor to completely test the whole system in an attempt to identify every possible vulnerability.

Experience & Reputation

A security assessment/ethical hacker (or a company) with more experience in the business will obviously be more expensive. The quality of the pentesting results will ultimately depend on the expertise of the tester, so you might want to look for pentesters with credentials like CISSP, OSCP, and GIAC among other relevant ones.

Onsite/Offsite

In most cases, security assessment will be performed remotely offsite, just like how cybercriminals and hackers would attack your system. However, sometimes onsite testing could be required for especially large or complex systems. An onsite visit may also be necessary if you’d like to test your system’s physical security, as well as to test vulnerabilities related to social engineering.

After Service

Some pentesters may include additional services like assisting the remediation process or retesting after remediation has been applied, which may increase the overall cost.

Although security assessment is expensive, it is still the best way to test the overall security of your system. Also, due to the level of detail provided by pentesting, it is often required to stay compliant with various relevant security standards like HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2 Type 2, and so on.

Why is security assessment needed?

While vulnerability scanning is already sufficient for identifying high-level vulnerabilities on your system and network, security assessment at regular intervals is still a necessity to ensure the thorough protection of your systems against cybersecurity attacks.

Pentesting offers three main benefits over regular vulnerability scanning:

In-Depth Analysis: Pentesting can offer more in-depth analysis of each vulnerability identified, which can prevent false positives.

Understanding the Potential Impact of Each Vulnerability: Vulnerability scanning won’t tell you whether a vulnerability is exploitable and the extent of the impact when these vulnerabilities are exploited.
Compliance Requirement: security assessment is required to meet the information security compliance with standards such as HIPAA and PCI DSS.

ecurity assessment may also be required for:

Identifying potential loopholes in the system not identified by vulnerability scanning.
To ensure the security and integrity of sensitive data (e.g. financial information), when this data is going to be transferred between different systems or over the internet.
Sometimes clients may ask for pentesting before a software solution can be released.
Identifying security vulnerabilities in applications and mobile APIs.

What happens after a security assessment?

Similar to a vulnerability scanning process, the tester or ethical hacker will also create a detailed report for the security assessment process, listing detailed information about any security vulnerabilities and subsequent vulnerabilities that are successfully identified and exploited through the security assessment process.

This report is typically presented to the IT department (and network system managers) so the IT department can make strategic decisions based on this report. The organization should immediately plan how they are going to remediate the identified vulnerabilities, especially those with the highest potential risk.security assessment reports are typically longer and more detailed, containing testing methodologies, a description of attacks used to exploit the vulnerabilities, and suggestions on how to fix the vulnerabilities.

Pentesting vs. Vulnerability Scanning: Pros & Cons

Pentesting and vulnerability scanning each have their own value, and both are crucial in forming a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy for any business. In general, vulnerability scanning should be performed more often (ideally weekly or monthly), while security assessment should complement the regular vulnerability scanning with a more in-depth analysis of your system security. Here are some pros and cons:

Pros of Security Assessment

More in-depth analysis with manual tests, resulting in more thorough results.
Can effectively prevent false positives.
Don’t need to be performed too often. In most cases, an annual security assessment is enough.
Most pentesting services include remediation assistance and retesting after remediation in the price.

Cons of Security Assessment

Cost, as mentioned, pentesting can be very expensive.
Time-consuming, can take at least the whole day, and for very large/complex systems, a thorough security assessment can take more than 2 weeks. May cause downtime to your day-to-day operations.

On the other hand, here are the benefits and disadvantages of vulnerability scanning:

Pros of Vulnerability Scanning

Very affordable, either you purchase a vulnerability scanning tool yourself or outsource the process to a vulnerability scanning vendor. Can be as low as $100/year.
Automated, can be scheduled to run weekly, monthly, or quarterly as needed.
Each iteration is quick to process, won’t affect your day-to-day operation.
Can be run often so you can detect new vulnerabilities quickly, for example when adding new equipment.

Cons of Vulnerability Scanning

False positives are possible, so ideally each vulnerability discovered through vulnerability scanning should be re-checked and validated.
Will not tell the user whether the vulnerability is exploitable, and the potential impact of the vulnerability.
Before performing another scanning, businesses must perform a manual check on each vulnerability for it to be effective.

Understanding Malicious Vulnerability Scanning

When discussing “vulnerability scanning”, context is important. For some people, “vulnerability scanning” may mean a specific type of cybersecurity attack (which can be true), so you shouldn’t be confused when this situation arises.

As we’ve discussed throughout this article, vulnerability scanning with automated tools is a cybersecurity method used by organizations to scan their own systems, equipment, network, and other digital assets.

However, we should know that cybercriminals can use the same tool and technique to scan for vulnerabilities on websites, applications, and APIs that are not their own. Cybercriminals typically use automated programs (malicious bots) to identify vulnerabilities they can potentially exploit and will launch more severe attacks once they’ve successfully identified these vulnerabilities.

This is known as ‘malicious vulnerability scanning’, which is actually a type of cybersecurity threat recognized by the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) foundation and is designated with the identity code OAT-014.

Malicious vulnerability scanning is an automated threat that is defined by OWASP as a “crawl and fuzz application to identify weaknesses and possible vulnerabilities”, and now is becoming increasingly popular and often performed by cybercriminals against eCommerce websites and web applications/databases that contain sensitive information.

The Anatomy of Malicious Vulnerability Scanning

In a malicious vulnerability scanning attack, a perpetrator uses automated software programs (bots) to identify vulnerabilities and security gaps in your digital assets: website, applications, APIs, services, and even a network.

The malicious vulnerability scanning attack by itself won’t affect your assets in any negative way. However, once the cybercriminal has successfully identified these vulnerabilities and how to exploit them, they may launch other, more severe attacks to attack your system.

For example, the vulnerability scanning bot may detect a SQL injection vulnerability in your system, so the attacker will follow this up by performing an SQL injection attack, compromising your database and the sensitive data stored within.

Thus, the anatomy of a malicious vulnerability scanning attack involves three key phases:

Phase 1: the perpetrator identifies a target (a website, an application, etc.), and then configures a bot accordingly to perform vulnerability scanning on this target. The perpetrator may also define the right payloads.

Phase 2: the configured bot will perform the vulnerability scanning process in an attempt to identify security gaps.
Phase 3: once the bot has identified potential vulnerabilities, the attacker will manually try to exploit the vulnerabilities. This phase is similar to a pentesting process, and once the attacker has identified a vulnerability that can be exploited, they will perform an attack.

When malicious bots performing vulnerability scanning are not mitigated, they can potentially cause severe damages to your business, not only financially but also potential legal repercussions and long-term damage to your reputation.

Protecting Your Digital Assets From Malicious Vulnerability Scanning

Malicious vulnerability scanning relies on the use of bots to perform automated vulnerability scanning. So, at the first glance, the key to stopping these malicious vulnerability scanning attacks is fairly obvious: detecting these bots, and stopping their activities.

However, a regular bot detection and management solution may not be enough for this purpose due to two main challenges in bot mitigation:

The presence of good bots: not all bots on the internet are malicious, and there are many beneficial ones operated by reputable companies, like Googlebot. We wouldn’t want to accidentally block these good bots, and yet distinguishing between these good and bad bots can be quite a challenge.
Sophisticated bots mimicking human users: today’s malicious bots are extremely good at masking their identities and impersonating real human users, for example by using AI technologies to perform human-like actions. Bot programmers may also involve the use of other techniques like rotating between hundreds of residential IP addresses per minute. It can be very difficult to distinguish sophisticated bots from legitimate users.

To tackle these challenges, an advanced and comprehensive bot detection software like DataDome should be employed. DataDome can rapidly identify visitor behavior on your website that shows signs of malicious vulnerability scanning, and will automatically block the source before attacks unfold, effectively preventing it from negatively impacting the customer experience.

DataDome deploys in minutes on any web architecture and runs on autopilot. You will receive real-time notifications whenever your site is under attack, but no intervention is required. Once you have created an allow list of trusted partner bots, DataDome takes care of all incoming vulnerability scanning threats.

Wrapping Up

While related, pentesting and vulnerability scanning are two distinct processes that are equally important to encourage optimal system security. Vulnerability scans are designed to be performed quickly and frequently, and you can run vulnerability scans monthly or even weekly to quickly gain insight into your system security.

Security assessment, on the other hand, can be expensive and time-consuming but will provide you with a more thorough report on the vulnerabilities of your system, potential threats, and the extent of potential exploits to these vulnerabilities.

We’ve also discussed that although vulnerability scanning is initially designed as a protective measure, the same technique and methodology can also be used by cybercriminals against you to identify vulnerabilities on your system and network.

To protect yourself and your digital assets from these bot-driven malicious vulnerability scanning attempts, a comprehensive solution like DataDome is a necessity. DataDome employs a two-layer bot detection engine based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, allowing real-time, effective identification of malicious bots performing vulnerability scanning.