A vulnerability is a weakness in a digital system or network that can be used by an attacker or cybercriminal to deliver a successful attack. They can occur through several flaws and network errors in which cybercriminals will gain unauthorized access to a computer system and perform malicious activities. Vulnerability scanning aims to detect and list these types of weaknesses in systems and networks to provide effective solutions to them at the next step.
A cyberattack performed based on a vulnerability can impact systems in one of these forms:
● Running a malicious code
● Installing malware
● Stealing sensitive data
● Gaining unauthorized access
Vulnerability scanning is an intrinsic requirement of cybersecurity vulnerability management that can be performed through 2 different methodologies. If you want to find out more about this and find the answer to these questions, read the following sections:
● Why does a company need vulnerability scanning?
● What are the main types of vulnerabilities?
● How are vulnerability scans performed?
● What are the main tools needed to do vulnerability scans?
● What are the main types of vulnerability scanning?
● What are the benefits of vulnerability scanning for your organization?
● How are vulnerability scanning and vulnerability assessment related to each other?
It is a Modern Solution Backed by Human Intelligence and Machine Power
Vulnerability scanning and assessment is the process of identifying, classifying, and reporting system vulnerabilities that must be fixed in the next steps by cybersecurity or network specialists. Vulnerability scanning is an integral part of a vulnerability management program that will be created and developed by a cybersecurity team.
● Identifying cybersecurity vulnerabilities is one of the most important steps organizations should take to improve their overall data security posture. This process will be done after creating the best vulnerability scanning plan and implementing powerful tools designed for detecting minor and major system problems related to cybersecurity in a company.
Vulnerability scanning is an automated task today since we have access to modern and cutting-edge technologies. Automating processes can save time, costs, and effort, but there is a need for a foolproof vulnerability scanning plan before taking any action.
Where are Vulnerability Scanning Solutions Used?
Vulnerability testing or scanning is a broad concept that describes a useful and necessary process in cybersecurity strategies and enterprise security management. The term covers the required practices for finding and fixing software or hardware problems in small to large companies that use software solutions and IT tools.
Even small and newly-founded startup companies are in need of a vulnerability testing plan since they are more likely to be impacted by cyber threats. Whether you own a small business or a large company with more than 500 employees, vulnerability testing is a necessary requirement for your cybersecurity plan.
7 Common Types of Cyber Vulnerabilities
When reviewing the cybersecurity posture in a company, it’s important to check conditions and address the most important weaknesses that can cause disastrous issues. A professional cybersecurity team can take a proactive approach and employ proper tools to understand if a company is exposed to these vulnerabilities or not:
1. Misconfigurations
Misconfigurations are one of the most crucial threats to network and app security. Many network applications and software tools require manual configuration in which cybersecurity professionals must consider security tips to avoid related issues. In recent years, numerous reported security breaches were a result of improper software configuration, impacting both cloud and on-premise server applications.
Cybersecurity teams can adopt security tools and technologies to automate the configuration process and have eagle-eye monitoring and control over software and application configuration in a company.
2. Outdated and Unpatched Software
Software companies and developers regularly provide application updates to add new features and capabilities to their products or patch detected cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The patching process is a necessary requirement if you want to avoid cyberattacks that penetrate systems through outdated software tools.
Software patches and updates are released by software vendors, but it is the responsibility of organizations to install such updates and secure their networks and endpoints. Falling behind in updating software tools can have disastrous consequences, as cybercriminals are always trying to find new vulnerabilities and exploit your systems.
3. Weak or Stolen User Credentials
Creating unique and strong passwords is necessary for all users and employees who use your network and system tools. Using vulnerable passwords or recycling them is a type of cyber threat.
Weak passwords are easy for hackers to guess, and they can easily crack short passwords using password-cracking tools. Vulnerability scanning involves a thorough strategy, including password scanning and analysis. If there are any vulnerable or weak passwords assigned to network or system users, a deep vulnerability scan on your systems can detect those issues right away.
4. Access Control and Management
Unauthorized access is categorized as one of the primary vulnerabilities that can put your organization into trouble. Identity and access management (IAM) is an essential part of security systems, and every cybersecurity strategy should benefit from a proven IAM plan.
Without proper authentication and authorization, there are numerous vulnerabilities, and those people with unnecessary access may act as internal threats to cybersecurity in your company.
Your cybersecurity team can analyses your access control and management process and provide a list of weaknesses related to this. Therefore, they can develop practical plans and procedures to manage access and control privileges in your system and network.
5. Zero-day Vulnerabilities
A zero-day vulnerability refers to a security flaw that was discovered by a cybercriminal a long time ago but is still unknown to a company. 0-day vulnerabilities are very dangerous for companies since they can be very difficult to detect and fix.
To effectively detect these types of vulnerabilities and related risks, an effective defensive strategy is needed in vulnerability scanning and is an essential part of it. Companies can prepare for these stealthy events by deploying reliable cybersecurity solutions, but the first step is about performing a thorough vulnerability scan on systems and networks.
6. APIs
APIs can be insecure, and they can be a starting point for hackers to penetrate systems in a company. If not properly and securely managed, APIs can cause incurable issues for cybersecurity in organizations.
APIs are being used more than ever with the proliferation of new technologies and digital tools that need to interact with each other through secure interfaces. APIs offer unique opportunities to make stable connections between 2 technology tools or applications. But, from a higher viewpoint, they are becoming increasingly challenging if we want to secure those modern capabilities.
APIs can put your organization into trouble, and the related risks include:
● Broken object level
● User-level authorization
● Excessive data exposure
● Lack of a good security configuration
● Improper logging and monitoring
● Inadequate validation
The only way to effectively manage the risks of APIs in an organization with numerous applications and interconnections is to know which vulnerabilities exist behind these tools. API vulnerability scanning is the most effective method to easily spot weaknesses and critical points which can cause security issues for data security and protection in an organization. Note that misconfiguration of APIs by human error is one of the most common issues related to API security in small and large organizations.
7. Malicious Insider Threats
Employees of a company who have access to critical systems and network tools may intentionally or unintentionally contribute to a cyber threat and share sensitive data with cyber criminals. Because employees are considered trustworthy persons in a company, cybersecurity risks related to insider threats can be more challenging to identify.
A comprehensive vulnerability management plan completely outlines all risks related to malicious insider threats, and cybersecurity teams have practical solutions in this case. Upon performing a deep vulnerability scanning, system weaknesses and issues associated with insider threats are listed, and reports will be sent to the desired section of the cybersecurity team.
Insider threats can be classified like below:
● Compromised users: Users who are unaware of falling into a cyberattack. This is the most common insider threat in organizations in which employees are unknowingly responsible for a cyberattack.
● Careless users: Employees who are responsible for a cyber threat by making careless mistakes. Not performing tasks correctly and leaving systems or endpoints unlocked can be a security threat caused by careless employees.
● Malicious users: Intentional attackers who have valid access to systems in an organization.
After a vulnerability scan, organizations can take the following steps that help reduce the risk of insider threats:
● Creating a zero-trust strategy
● Enforcing organizational policies
● Increasing visibility
● Protecting highly sensitive data
What Are the Different Types of Vulnerability Scans?
Vulnerability scanning is the act of examining an information network or computer system for any exploits or defects associated with data security and protection. By finding existing weaknesses, security professionals can use the generated reports to either strengthen the security of computer systems or make changes in cybersecurity strategies.
● Cybersecurity teams perform vulnerability scanning through different methods, and there are different types of scanning tools available for performing multiple types of scans across digital systems and networks.
The main classification for vulnerability scanners is as follows:
● Network-based vulnerability scanners
● Agent-based vulnerability scanners
● Web-application vulnerability scanners
Each of these scanning methodologies has its place, and cybersecurity analysts and incident responders make use of them according to different situations. However, there is another classification for different types of vulnerability scans explained in the next sections.
1. Authenticated
Authenticated vulnerability testing reports weaknesses exposed to authenticated users of a system or employees of an organization. These types of vulnerability tests allow cybersecurity experts to use privileged credentials to explore the security of a system or network and test it for weak passwords, malware, installed applications, and configuration issues.
This is a thorough simulation that reveals what an authenticated user of the system can do and how user behaviors can impact the overall data security in an organization.
2. Unauthenticated
Unauthenticated vulnerability testing is as important as the first practice. Unauthenticated testing is carried out by cybersecurity professionals to test systems from a public viewpoint. This practice is sometimes called a logged-out scan and refers to inspecting a target IT infrastructure from an outside perspective. This process is performed to demonstrate how a system looks to external actors and unauthenticated users.
Another Classification Depending on the Use Case
Vulnerability scanning can be categorized based on the use case and the objectives your cybersecurity team is looking to achieve in different attempts.
Remember that there are many types of vulnerability scans in which cybersecurity teams have particular objectives and perform these scans for different security tasks. A vulnerability scan can be done in order to expose web server weaknesses, and it can provide you with a complete report on internal network errors and defects.
In fact, we may have different vulnerability scans according to different situations and use cases.
Some of the most common categories for vulnerability scans performed by cybersecurity teams are as follows.
1. Network Based Vulnerability Scans
Network-based vulnerability scanning is the process of identifying security weaknesses in a network or other IT systems that are potential targets for cybercriminals. Creating a network-based vulnerability scan is often the first step to developing a cybersecurity strategy since network-based security defects are considered a priority for hackers to start penetrating and exploiting organizational systems.
There is a wide range of network vulnerability scanners available to cybersecurity teams which let them quickly assess your network for these defects. In most cases, these network-based scanners prioritise and remediate vulnerabilities. However, we need the final report, and responsible team members can design practical solutions based on these reports.
2. Agent Based Vulnerability Scans
Agent-based vulnerability scanning is an interesting methodology for detecting weaknesses on each device. To achieve this, cybersecurity professionals install lightweight software scanners on each device that will be scanned to run local scans. There are helpful reports after each vulnerability scan back to a central server. Because the vulnerability scanner software is deployed on a target device, this type of scanning methodology can be a highly reliable solution since it will detect a wide range of vulnerabilities that other scanning practices cannot detect at all.
An agent-based vulnerability scan can be somewhat time-consuming as there is a need to install related software tools on target devices. In agent-based vulnerability scans, permanent and low-impact software will be responsible for monitoring the different aspects of a system, finding weaknesses, and reporting back to a cybersecurity team.
There are so many reasons demonstrating agent-based vulnerability scanning is better than agentless scanning practices. But it depends on the use case as we need agentless scanning tools for some specific conditions:
Agent-based scanners offer the following advantages:
● Reduced network traffic
● Coverage of disconnected devices
● BYOD support
● Detailed reporting
3. Web Application Vulnerability Scans
A web application scanner is a type of automated security program that can search and detect software vulnerabilities in web applications and web software tools. A web application scanner can be a third-party tool, or an organization can create and develop its own scanning software. Web vulnerability scanners are equipped with different tools to scan for web services, web servers, proxy servers, and web application servers.
Web scanners can crawl and analyze a website regardless of the technologies used for creating it and they produce an easy-to-understand report.
There is a wide variety of cyber threats that can be detected by web application scanners, including but not limited to:
● Cross-site scripting (XSS)
● SQL injection
● Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
● Distributed denial of service (DDoS)
More powerful scanners can take advantage of more advanced techniques to deliver detailed reports on how your web applications are working and which weaknesses can impact these applications over time.
A web application scanner is server-based that runs on a server and tests web applications in terms of cybersecurity. Web application scanners provide cybersecurity teams with the following capabilities:
● Continuous discovery and testing processes
● Increased vulnerability scanning coverage
● Easy availability of insights
● Improved legibility and accuracy
4. Internal Vulnerability Scans
Internal vulnerability scans are designed to expose the defects and weaknesses of internal systems. Internal scans examine an organisation’s security condition from the perspective of an insider or persons who have access to systems and networks. An internal scan is performed from a location that has access to organizational systems, which will provide a wide range of protection systems against known and unknown vulnerabilities.
Internal vulnerability scans are a great practice to protect applications and systems against weaknesses that are not exposed by external scans but can cause irrecoverable issues.
This approach offers an extended list of benefits, including the followings:
● Identifies weaknesses before cyber criminals find them
● Allows cybersecurity teams to optimize everything and fix the detected security issues
● Provides an opportunity to assess the security risk level in your organization
● Protects business continuity that may be impacted by insider threats and system vulnerabilities
● Reduces the risk of data breaches and data loss in your organization
Note that an internal scan can provide a better and more in-depth report on vulnerabilities as it is performed from a privileged position.
5. External Vulnerability Scans
External vulnerability scans are done from outside a network, and they can reveal externally-accessible weaknesses that may impact the network. External vulnerability scans are as crucial as internal scans, and external scans are considered beneficial since they include a wide range of assessments.
In other words, external scans assess all the followings that can be accessed by external users or individuals:
● Websites
● Ports
● Services
● Networks
● Systems
● Applications
External scans are the best solution for your organization when you need to identify the security and protection level of your systems and network that is exposed to outside intruders and cybercriminals. The most important benefit of doing an external scan is to find unsecured transfer protocols in the network and find out if there is any misconfiguration.
Here are some other benefits of an external vulnerability scan:
● It provides an opportunity to realize if there are software update requirements
● It allows your cybersecurity team to identify misconfigured services
● It helps your team priorities security cybersecurity practices and efforts
6. Port Vulnerability Scans
The process of scanning computer hardware ports is called port scanning, which is one of the essential requirements for thorough vulnerability scanning. This process provides full insight into whether a system’s ports are open, closed, or filtered. Port management in any organisational system is considered a priority task, as ports define the sending and receiving of data between systems and connected devices.
A port scanner will inspect ports by taking send/receive protocols and IP addresses into account, and there will be a thorough report outlining all vulnerabilities and port weaknesses that must be fixed soon. There are different port scanning techniques, and each of them provides a specific type of information on the security status of system ports.
Port scanning is performed by port scanning tools, and the process may take a few minutes to a few days depending on the situation. Pen testers in a cybersecurity team play an important role in the port scanning process, and they make an effort to analyse all weaknesses related to this to block vulnerable ports that are doors to devices and must be securely managed and controlled.
7. Database Vulnerability Scans
If you want to prevent data breaches and hinder these types of cyber threats, database vulnerability scans are essentially needed to be added in your data security and protection strategy.
Database security tools are designed to offer simplicity and peace of mind. These tools help cybersecurity testers and analysts automate testing and scanning processes and create the required reports in a blink of an eye.
A database vulnerability scan allows cybersecurity teams to completely analyses databases in the case of weak passwords, role permissions, remote logins, etc. It gives pen testers an opportunity to identify issues related to the security level of admin accounts and check if there are unauthorized access privileges to the database in your organization.
If it is done thoroughly and meticulously, there will be a detailed report that unearths any suspicious activity in your organisation’s database and data storage. Attackers constantly try to exploit security weaknesses, and databases are one of the primary targets hackers would like to perform cyberattacks on. There are numerous reasons why your company needs a reliable database security plan:
● It prevents data breaches
● It helps your organization avoid fines and penalties
● It protects your brand’s reputation
● It ensures you will not experience interruptions
A database vulnerability scanning helps cybersecurity teams detect and list these weaknesses and provide proven solutions to them in the future:
● Deployment failures
● Insider threats
● Unnecessary privileges
● Human errors
● Weak passwords and credentials
8. Source Code Vulnerability Scans
Even if your software development and IT team spend a great deal of time developing software tools, there may be source code vulnerabilities. These defects and weaknesses can be explored using source code analyzer tools through automated processes.
For a lot of reasons, source code analysing is not an optional requirement anymore for companies who aim to develop their own programs and application tools. One of the fastest growing areas in the software development industry is source code security analysis tools that assist cybersecurity specialists in reviewing the source code of software tools and applications line by line and detecting security vulnerabilities. Ideally, it is one of the best and most effective practices before the official release of a software product or web application in which the process contributes significantly to preventing cyber threats and removing defects and bugs that may be unexplored during the software development process.
Source code vulnerability scanning tools come with embedded features, and they offer a wide range of capabilities, including the followings:
● Support for many programming languages
● Proven bug-finding performance
● Seamless integration with development platforms and other data security tools
● Foolproof reporting features
Static source code analysis is a practical process by which specialists can use them to check their code for problems and inconsistencies before the official release. Static scanners can scan the source code of any software and application to detect a wide range of problems:
● Syntax problems
● Unconditional branches into loops
● Undeclared variables
● Uninitialised variables
● Uncalled functions and procedures
● Misuse of variables, functions, and parameters
● Any other security inefficiencies
9. Cloud Vulnerability Scans
Cloud vulnerability scanning has become a necessary process for many organizations to identify and remediate cloud security risks. Cybersecurity team members can use cloud vulnerability scanning tools to identify security issues that are hidden in cloud-based applications and related online services.
The process involves several vulnerability scanning practices, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). Remember that cloud applications and these online services have become a popular target for attackers as long as many organizations store sensitive data in the cloud. Therefore, considering a cloud vulnerability scanning strategy to scan cloud-based applications and software tools for flaws is crucial.
Nordic Defender implements the right cloud vulnerability scanners that offer these exclusive features:
● Scanning complex web applications
● Monitoring systems and networks
● Providing on-time and insightful reports
● Tracking and remediating cloud vulnerabilities
What Kind of Tools Can be Used for Vulnerability Scanning?
Vulnerability testing and scanning are key requirements within regulatory frameworks like SOC2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and NIST. To achieve the best performance and fast speed for vulnerability tests, cybersecurity teams make use of powerful tools that help them uncover weaknesses in less time and with less effort.
Scanner software can be all-inclusive to provide all the features needed for testing, remediating, and reporting. In addition, there are other tools that help teams perform specific tasks related to vulnerability scanning.
A Closer Look: Vulnerability Scanning and Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability testing and vulnerability management are interchangeably used in many cases, but they have fundamental differences. In short, vulnerability scanning is just an essential part of vulnerability management, and it allows cybersecurity teams to create an all-embracing management plan.
A vulnerability management plan consists of 6 main parts in which the testing and scanning process is just one of these essential requirements.
● Identifying vulnerabilities: The first step of vulnerability management involves scanning and testing systems and networks for potential weaknesses. This process is done by employing robust scanning tools that will investigate defined parts of a system or software in different steps and provide a report on known weaknesses present in a company’s IT infrastructure.
● Evaluating vulnerabilities: After the vulnerabilities have been explored, the next step is to evaluate these for their degree of risk. CVSS is an open standard to score weaknesses by a numbering system, ranging from 0 for the low-risk weakness to 10 for the critical weakness.
● Remediating vulnerabilities: Remediating vulnerabilities involves treating and fixing some issues that are at high risk and can cause problems in the near future. This step is all about prioritizing and eliminating weaknesses based on the risk level explained in the previous step.
● First reporting on vulnerabilities: First reporting is performed to demonstrate which problems have been found in your IT infrastructure. You can read this report and get comprehensive insight into the IT security situation in your organization that helps change the cybersecurity strategy or modify it.
● Eliminating vulnerabilities: You will need to speak to your cybersecurity team leader to discuss security issues detected in your IT infrastructure and plan for eliminating them as soon as possible. This step is as critical as the first step, which is designed to eliminate all low-risk and high-risk data security issues in your organization.
● Final reporting on changes: You can get a final report after all changes and updates are applied to your systems and networks. The final assessment and report will tell your systems are secure and protected against cyber threats.
The Benefits of Vulnerability Scanning
Scanning a system or network for security vulnerabilities is key to keeping a company secure, but it is not the only solution. Vulnerability scanning is just a part of a cybersecurity strategy that data security team members use to discover out-of-sight weaknesses and deficiencies. However, vulnerability scanning is a necessary part of our enterprise security management strategy that small and large organizations can implement to level up their data security and protection.
If carried out properly, vulnerability scanning will provide your organization with these benefits:
● Identifying vulnerabilities before cyber criminals act on your system
● Defining the level of risks on your systems and networks
● Restricting cybersecurity holes in your organization
● Saving time and money through automated processes
● Increasing operational efficiency
● Optimising the fixing requirements for your software or hardware tools
● Helping your business continuity
● Retaining and enhancing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty
● Ensuring the integrity of your assets
● Preventing financial loss
Read more about the most important benefits of vulnerability scanning in the next sections.
1. Cross-reference False Positives
False positives are more than just a notification; They can cost your cybersecurity effort a fortune. One of the biggest challenges is hateful false positives, by which alerts triggered by a false rule can cause it to create a ticket for an event that’s not really a security threat.
Organisations are increasingly facing false positives that can be time-consuming and money-wasting to handle for cybersecurity teams. Automated vulnerability scanning is one of the most effective solutions for managing these disgusting false positives in small and large organizations, and automation can be a helpful tool for identifying good data from worthless data coming from different sources.
False positives are going to bring efficient and effective cybersecurity strategies to a halt, but modern vulnerability scanning practices aim to solve this challenge.
One of the proven methods to reduce the number of false positives during vulnerability scanning is to configure scanners with appropriate credentials. More importantly, false positives must be maintained and managed by experienced cybersecurity professionals who understand how they can deal with these issues.
2. Less Bug-fixing Effort and Time
Bug-fixing is the process of changing or modifying a system or software product to handle the defects created in the programming and software development process. Bug fixing is a critical role of software developers, and there must be much effort in finding, testing, maintaining, and fixing software bugs.
From a cybersecurity view, bugs are considered critical problems which hackers can use to penetrate systems and impact data security and protection. Vulnerability scanning and assessment are focused on detecting harmful bugs before they can be exploited by cybercriminals. By performing a thorough security bug scanning, there will be a complete program analysis report outlining which security bugs exist in systems and software tools.
There are different ways your cybersecurity team can find and fix security bugs early. If you work with an experienced cybersecurity team, they know how you can integrate bug prevention and fixing procedures into your software development process. Fewer security issues in your software tools and applications mean there will be less wasted time and costs.
Vulnerability scanning will be a helpful process in detecting bugs that can hide other bugs. You may deal with a bug and fix it, but there might be another that wasn’t apparent until the first one was detected and fixed. Thorough vulnerability and weakness scanning performed by cybersecurity experts can inform you about all these issues, resulting in reducing the bug-fixing time and effort in your organization.
3. Zero-day Vulnerabilities Bank
Security vulnerabilities can be targeted without prior notice, and this is when a zero-day vulnerability may hit your organization. A zero-day vulnerability is a newly identified software weakness or hardware problem that hasn’t been detected for a long time. 0-day vulnerabilities may be hidden for weeks or months, and they have the potential to provoke severe damage if there is no comprehensive plan for confronting them.
A well-designed vulnerability scanner is one of the best and most effective software solutions to deal with zero-day threats in organizations because it can fundamentally examine and scrutinize system and software weaknesses in your organization. The vulnerability scanner might not expose the actual zero-day vulnerability, but it helps fix linked vulnerabilities and restrict the negative impacts of unknown weaknesses in your systems and software tools.
Note that your in-house or third-party cybersecurity team should be tasked to provide a trustworthy vulnerability management program that consists of several features to deal with security weaknesses. Here is a list of the best features for every vulnerability management software tool:
● Vulnerability scanning
● Vulnerability prioritization
● Vulnerability remediation
● Vulnerability patching
● Vulnerability reporting
New cybersecurity technologies like SIEM can help you save yourself from zero-day threats. It consists of all the processes, requirements, strategies, and program tools that are useful and mandatory to handle cyber threats and their negative impacts. SIEM comes with a comprehensive vulnerability scanning strategy and vulnerability management plan to hinder cyberattacks that can catch a company by surprise and result in significant damage.
How Does a Vulnerability Scanner Work to Empower Your Data Security?
Vulnerability scanners are an important part of cybersecurity as long as they can powerfully and reliably detect low-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk vulnerabilities through easy-to-use tools. A vulnerability scanner is an automated tool that is customized and executed to analyze weaknesses and create an inventory of all IT assets that are critical in terms of cybersecurity and data protection.
Vulnerability scanners consist of several components, and more advanced tools are equipped with a thorough remediating and reporting system, giving data security professionals a hand to handle the process in less time.
Leading vulnerability scanning tools provide cybersecurity teams with information about the followings:
● Weaknesses in their environment
● Insights into the level of risks found during the test
● Recommendations on how the team can mitigate the weakness
The essential features of scanners we use in our cybersecurity projects are as follows:
● Robust scanning capabilities
● Comprehensive coverage
● Issue remediating reports
● Risk level classification
● Policy assessment
● Asset discovery
A trustworthy vulnerability scanner can uncover weaknesses of:
● Backdoors detection
● Backup files
● Code injection
● Cross-site request forgery
● Common directories
● Card number disclosure
● Captcha detection
● Directory using
● File inclusion
● .htaccess LIMIT misconfiguration
● Insecure cookies
● Command injection
● ASP localsart
● LDAP injection
● Auto-complete password fields
● Response splitting
● SQL injection
● Path transversal
● Private IP address disclosure
● Remote file inclusion
● Source code disclosure
What the Nordic Defender’s Vulnerability Scanning Report Provide
An inclusive report is the final step of the vulnerability scanning process, and we will provide you with a complete report on how your systems and software applications are working and responding to cyberattacks. Our scanning tools benefit from centralized dashboards to provide valuable insights needed for analyzing security issues and reporting to corresponding sectors for future actions.
You can rely on these reports to change or modify the cybersecurity strategy in your company. Moreover, these reports include overall risk classification that helps you track the effectiveness of your cybersecurity effort and spending.
We will provide the necessary information about the following:
● Overall system summary
● Overall scan summary
● The number of vulnerability scans
● The number of vulnerabilities found
● Top 10 vulnerabilities that need great attention
● Security issues by asset
● Security issues by vulnerability
● The risk level of detected vulnerabilities
● Essential steps required soon
● Recommendations for remediation
What Makes Our Vulnerability Scanner a Better Solution
Nordic Defender’s certified team members do everything possible to keep cyber threats at bay for your organization by deeply scanning your systems and networks and providing a comprehensive report. We employ the best practices for vulnerability scanning to minimize the probability of being impacted by cybersecurity weaknesses in your organization.
1. Real Risk Score
There are different risk scoring standards for figuring out the risk level of a detected vulnerability after the scanning process. The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is a method used to attribute numerical explanation to a weakness and explain it from a quantitative point of view.
The base metrics produce a score ranging from 0 to 10, which can be used for risk evaluation after the scanning process is done. Our real risk scoring system takes one step further and outlines vulnerabilities that are more likely to contribute to causing problems for your company.
2. Policy Assessment
Complying with defined cybersecurity policies is as important as finding vulnerabilities and fixing them. Nordic Defender provides all-around policy scanning and assessment to help you evaluate your procedures according to popular cybersecurity standards and comply with the required regulatory rules.
Nordic Defender’s inclusive reports give you step-by-step instructions on which actions are beneficial for your company to minimize risks of policy and regulatory noncompliance.
3. Remediation Reporting
If a cyberattack is successful, it can devastate an organization. So, our team members aim to provide remediation reporting for strengthening your cybersecurity strategy that includes several actions you can take now to reduce the risks of vulnerabilities. The quicker you are able to identify and fix current security issues in your organization, the better your security plans will be executed and performed before weaknesses can cause disastrous problems.
We have conducted several cybersecurity projects for small to large-sized Scandinavian companies, providing practical plans to guide them in deploying the best data security protection. Our data security remediation plan consists of proven and ready-to-go practices tailored to your organization’s needs.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking to integrate modern cybersecurity procedures into your company and get expert guidance on these things, feel free to contact one of our certified team members. Nordic Defender has helped many Scandinavian companies find working and resultful solutions, including proven vulnerability scanning practices. Our data security analysts and cybersecurity consultants will help you create the right vulnerability management plan and benefit from top-notch vulnerability testing tools.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a vulnerability in digital systems and networks?
● A vulnerability in digital systems and networks refers to weaknesses that can be exploited by an attacker. The flaw could be in internal systems, and it could be a result of improper configuration or design in digital systems or networks.
What are different types of scanning for cybersecurity?
● Apart from vulnerability scanning, network scanning and port scanning are 2 primary methods for detecting weaknesses in systems and networks.
How is vulnerability scanning performed?
● Vulnerability scanning is performed using vulnerability scanners that are designed for security auditing and related network discovery. Also, there are defined scanning techniques that help cybersecurity teams do this process rapidly and reliably.
What are the top 7 vulnerabilities?
● Injection
● Sensitive data exposure
● Broken access control
● Security misconfiguration
● Cross-site scripting
● XML external entities
● Insufficient logging and monitoring
What are the 2 types of vulnerability scanning?
● Every vulnerability scanning can be classified as a credentialed or non-credentialed scan. These are also referred to as authenticated or non-authenticated scans, and each has specific conditions to be performed.