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Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing

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Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing, or as commonly referred to as VAPT, are two types of security testing activities. Both of them have their own set of strengths, and in order to achieve a thorough vulnerability analysis of the systems under the scope of testing, they are combined together. Although with a similar area of focus for both, they perform a different set of tasks while expecting an altogether different set of results. A vulnerability assessment, often encompassing vulnerability scanning, is designed to help identify, classify and address security risks in your network, operating systems, firewalls, and hardware. It also provides the ongoing support and advice needed to best mitigate any risks identified.

Vulnerability assessment consists of several steps

  • Defining and classifying network or system resources
  • Assigning relative levels of importance to the resources
  • Identifying potential threats to each resource
  • Developing a strategy to deal with the most serious potential problems first
  • Defining and implementing ways to minimize the consequences if an attack occurs
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Penetration testing, or pen testing for short, is a multi-layered security assessment that uses a combination of machine and human-led techniques to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in infrastructure, systems and applications.

A pen test conducted by a professional ethical hacker will include a post-assessment report detailing any vulnerabilities discovered and remediation guidance to help address them

For a Penetration Test to be beneficial, we perform many manual tests allowing us to simulate real attackers which includes, but not limited to:

  • Man-in-the-Middle attacks
  • The exploitation of software that has not been hardened or securely configured
  • Exploitation and demonstration of known vulnerabilities which are typically detected through Vulnerability scanning but not verified
  • Pass-the-hash attacks, lateral movements, offline brute force, credential dumping.
  • Default or weak credentials
  • Lack of network access control and proper network segmentation
  • Ways to bypass or abuse security solutions
  • Obvious security issues within the target scope

Benefits of VAPT

Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) approach gives an organization a more detailed view of the threats facing its applications, enabling the business to better protect its systems and data from malicious attacks. VAPT is increasingly important for organizations wanting to achieve compliance with standards including the GDPR, ISO 27001, TISAX.