VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT & PENETRATION TESTING
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) are both security services that focus on identifying vulnerabilities in the network, server, and system infrastructure. Both services serve different purposes and are carried out to achieve different but complementary goals.
Vulnerability Assessment focuses on internal organizational security, while Penetration Testing focuses on external real-world risk.
What is Vulnerability Assessment (VA)?
A Vulnerability Assessment is a rapid automated review of network devices, servers, and systems to identify key vulnerabilities and configuration issues that an attacker may be able to take advantage of. It’s generally conducted within the network on internal devices and due to its low footprint can be carried out as often as every day.
Vulnerability Assessment answers the question “What are the issues on my network?”.
What is Penetration Testing (PT or PenTest)?
A Penetration Test is an in-depth expert-driven activity focused on identifying various possible routes an attacker could use to break into the network. In addition to the vulnerabilities it also identifies the potential damage and further internal compromise, an attacker could carry out once they are past the perimeter.
Penetration Testing answers the question “What can a motivated attacker do?”.
What are the deliverables from a Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT)?
Ideally, a Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT) activity should result in the following deliverables:
- Executive Report – A high-level overview of the activity conducted, a summary of issues identified, risk ratings, and action items.
- Technical Report – A detailed report explaining each issue identified, step-by-step POCs for each issue, code, and configuration examples to fix the issue, and reference links for further details.
- Real-Time Online Dashboard – A online portal that allows your teams to monitor the audit progress in real-time, take immediate actions for high-risk issues, track fixes, and closure status, etc.
How should we define the scope of a Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT)?
The scope for each audit depends on the specific company, industry, compliance standards, etc. However, the following are some general guidelines that you should consider:
- Any and all devices with an IP address can be considered for a VAPT activity.
- Penetration Testing should focus on your organization’s external parameters (IP Addresses, Offices, People, etc)
- Vulnerability Assessment should focus on your internal infrastructure (servers, databases, switches, routers, desktops, firewalls, laptops, etc)
Do I need to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT)?
Cyber attacks and threats are a real-world problem today with thousands of networks and websites being compromised every day. Some of the normal reasons we see for carrying out a Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT) are as follows:
- Customer needs – It is becoming a common practice today for customers to request Security Certifications from their partners or vendors.
- Compliance – A large number of industry standards & regulations have included Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT) as a mandatory requirement.
- Security validation – Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VAPT) helps validate your security controls and measures against real-world attacks.
- Best practice & data security – As attackers scale and threats evolve, there is a need within organizations to carry out proactive security audits to protect their data and systems from evolving threats.
