Vulnerability assessment versus penetration testing. What are the differences?

Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing are compatible exercises that allow for the detection of vulnerabilities in corporate infrastructures and the prioritization of their mitigation.

Banks, telecommunications companies, electricity companies and even public bodies such as the DGT… If 2024 is making it clear that no organization is safe from cyber-attacks, not even companies and institutions that invest many resources in protecting their assets and safeguarding citizens’ information.

That is why cybersecurity services are critical to any business strategy. They help prevent incidents, improve attack resilience and optimize detection and response capabilities.

Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing are services that greatly help protect organizations.

This article will discuss the features and advantages of vulnerability assessment and penetration testing to help companies understand what benefits they can bring.

What is a vulnerability assessment?

A vulnerability assessment involves analyzing the security of an asset or a set of assets in an organization’s infrastructure. This analysis is carried out according to the previously defined scope. If the scope of assets is vast, proceeding initially with a visibility analysis of the services exposed in the infrastructure is necessary. This allows for a detailed analysis of the weaknesses affecting the assets.

The priority objective of this type of exercise is to identify the vulnerabilities to which the assets may be exposed.

Thus, thanks to a vulnerability assessment, it is possible to obtain the following:

• An inventory of assets and vulnerabilities.
• A prioritization of vulnerabilities to remediate them, considering their criticality level for the organization and its business model.

What is penetration testing?

Penetration testing projects have a different approach than vulnerability assessments.

In this type of exercise, a specific objective is defined to be achieved during the test execution. For example, compromising the domain infrastructure, the backup server infrastructure, or any critical asset of the corporate infrastructure.

Unlike a vulnerability assessment project, in the context of a pentest, efforts are focused on achieving the defined objectives. Therefore, there is no exhaustive dedication to identifying possible vulnerabilities with less criticality that may affect other assets outside the scope according to the objectives.

Objectives and differences of vulnerability assessment and penetration testing

In light of the essential characteristics of vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, we can point out the main objectives of each of these services:

• Vulnerability assessment: Its priority objective is to identify as many weaknesses as possible that may affect the infrastructure assets defined in the project’s scope.
• Penetration testing: Cybersecurity professionals who design and execute a penetration testing exercise focus on achieving the objectives previously defined by the company’s managers, so their mission is not to detect as many vulnerabilities as possible.

Their different objectives allow us to understand how vulnerability assessment and penetration testing differ.

While vulnerability assessment aims to identify security flaws and assess their risk, penetration testing goes one step further. Why? Pentesters pursue additional objectives by exploiting vulnerabilities and measuring their impact on the system or infrastructure.

In other words, the depth of offensive security testing is one of the main differences between vulnerability assessment and penetration testing.

Benefits of these cybersecurity services

Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing have different objectives, which means they have other benefits for companies wishing to increase their level of security against attacks.

The main benefit of a vulnerability assessment is the depth of the result obtained. Thus, cybersecurity professionals can assess potential corporate asset weaknesses and mitigate them before malicious actors exploit them.

In contrast, in a penetration testing exercise, efforts are focused on attacking the weakest assets to achieve the purpose defined in the initial objectives. Penetration testing also allows extrapolating the results of weaknesses in an infrastructure.

Regarding the benefits, it should be considered that in both vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, the time estimation of the tests is a determining factor. The longer the test execution time, the greater the success factor in identifying potential vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability assessment versus penetration testing: How can a company decide which service to hire?

First, we must emphasize that both services are compatible precisely because they have different objectives and benefits.

Even so, it is clear that not all companies have the same economic resources or the same level of maturity.

Therefore, it is advisable for companies that are less mature in terms of cybersecurity to prioritize executing a vulnerability assessment at an early stage. Thanks to the information obtained during the evaluation, penetration exercises could be launched once the most critical weaknesses in the corporate infrastructure have been resolvedaunched.

It is also important to note that corporate environments are dynamic and susceptible to change. Deploying new services and applications to suit the business’s needs is average.

This continuous change requires periodic vulnerability assessments and penetration testing exercises to analyze the maturity and security posture of the infrastructure and prevent the emergence of vulnerabilities that, because they are not detected, are not mitigated before malicious actors exploit them.

Ultimately, the two exercises are fully compatible, although their objectives differ. The vulnerability assessment or audit aims to be an exhaustive review of decontextualized system flaws, while penetration testing focuses on assessing the impact of the most relevant vulnerabilities on the target.

For this reason, cybersecurity experts recommend implementing vulnerability assessments and penetration testing exercises. These services complement each other, increase a company’s security level, and prevent incidents that can result in significant economic and reputational losses.