Vulnerability Scanning Process
Step 1: Defining the Scope of the scanning process
Clearly defining the scope of the vulnerability scanning process involves recognizing the systems, networks, and applications that will be included in the scan’s scope. Establish the goal of the scanning process and take organizational priorities and risk management into account.
Step 2: Identification and Mapping of the Assets
The assets have to be located and mapped inside the boundaries that were created in the previous phase. This mapping includes servers, networks, databases, web-based applications, network devices, etc. This phase is crucial since improper mapping and identification of the assets could leave certain vulnerable assets undiscovered and unfixed.
Step 3: Stratification of the Assets
It’s time to profile the assets to gain a thorough understanding of their configuration, services, and operating system after they have been identified and mapped. To perform a specific type of vulnerability scanning on all of the assets, this profiling assists in classifying and grouping related asset types.
Step 4: Select the Vulnerability Scanning Tool
It’s time to select the vulnerability scanning tool after profiling. The requirements of the organization, the configuration of the asset, and the desired level of detail are all important considerations when choosing the right scanning tool.
Step 5: Configure the Scanning Tool properly
It’s time to feed the scanner with asset information and configure it according to its specifications after choosing the scanner based on the requirements. Setting the scanning parameter and defining the scanning targets are included in the configuration. If the scanning is going to be more thorough, there may be some authentication configuration that is needed.
Step 6: Initiation of the Scan and Vulnerability Detection
It’s time to start scanning the assets for vulnerabilities after everything has been set up. The scanner establishes whether the system has any vulnerabilities at all by contrasting its properties with a database of known flaws. The database is updated regularly so that it can recognize and detect new vulnerabilities.
Step 7: Risk Assessment and Report Generation
Vulnerabilities are identified and then given a risk level to indicate how serious they are. This risk level aids the team in setting priorities for the remediation process according to the possible consequences and likelihood that those vulnerabilities will be exploited. There are four severity levels: low, medium, high, and critical.
What is Vulnerability Scanning in Security Testing?
Detecting and dealing with system vulnerabilities is the most important thing for any organization or systems administrator. Unauthorized hackers may exploit these flaws to obtain access to the system and abuse it in their ways. Detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities in different systems, applications, or network devices is done step-by-step through vulnerability scanning, one of the security scan domains. In this article we will take a closer look at Vulnerability Scanning explaining its importance (why it’s necessary), giving a brief overview of how it works, discussing its types and more common examples of vulnerability scanning results.
Table of Content
- Importance of Running a Vulnerability Scan
- Types of Vulnerability Scanning
- Vulnerability Scanning Process
- Working Procedure of Vulnerability Scanning
- Common Vulnerabilities Found in Vulnerability Scanning
- Vulnerability Scanning Best Practices
- Conclusion