How do I perform a Vulnerability Assessment vs a Penetration Test?

All answers to this question.

A Vulnerability Assessment is a "What is wrong?" approach. It uses automated tools like Nessus or OpenVAS to identify known weaknesses and missing patches across your network. It’s a broad, surface-level check. A Penetration Test is a "Can I get in?" approach. It takes those vulnerabilities and actually tries to exploit them to see how deep an attacker could go. For example, a scan might find an old version of a service, but a Pentester will use that service to steal admin credentials and move laterally through the network. The Pentest is more expensive because it requires a human expert to manually bypass security controls.

   Answered 2025-06-22 by Stephanie Reed

For a small business with a limited budget, should we do frequent automated scans or one professional pentest every year?

   Answered 2025-06-26 by Kevin Hubbard

• Kevin, the best strategy for a small budget is "Continuous Scanning" with a yearly Pentest. You should run automated scans every month to catch new CVEs and patch them immediately. This keeps the "easy" holes closed. Then, once a year, hire a pro to do a deep dive. If you only do the yearly pentest without regular scanning, the pentester will spend all their expensive time finding simple bugs that a free scanner could have caught, which is a waste of your security budget.

     Commented 2025-06-29 by Gary Thornton

Always remember the "Rules of Engagement." Whether it’s a scan or a test, you must have written permission and clearly defined boundaries to avoid crashing production servers.

   Answered 2025-07-02 by Larry Ferguson

• This is critical! Without a "Get Out of Jail Free" card (the contract), hacking is illegal. Always protect yourself legally before you touch a client's network.

     Commented 2025-07-04 by Nicole Perry