In recent times, the data breaching scandal has affected Facebook in a massive scale. By using a loophole in the security measures of the biggest social networks, the hackers gained access to the user data of its millions of users. In another particular incident, in 2018, the website of the National Healthcare System (NHS) in the UK has suffered from a lost data of some 150,000 patients. It was not down to a security attacks, rather a coding error in the data recording software used by its network of general practitioners (GP), leading to nationwide mayhem and a change in regulations. If the developers had performed a simple review of their systems, the incident could have been prevented altogether, or stopped at its inception. Safety testing like this is known as vulnerability assessment, an effective and careful use of which could save both Facebook and NHS a lot of reputation damages and embarrassments.
So, let’s find out everything you need to know about performing a vulnerability assessment below.

Definition of Vulnerability Assessment
Also known as vulnerability analysis, vulnerability assessment is a risk management process, which systematically analyze and reviews the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of an information system. It also provides the stakeholders of the system with information regarding the vulnerabilities, recommends the appropriate mitigations, and helps planning for the crisis management.
Vulnerability assessment is used by a wide-range of industries including information technology systems, water and energy supply systems, communication systems, transportation systems, etc. Among the many threats that can be prevented with an effective vulnerability assessment, the key ones are:
Detecting software with insecure settings such as weak administrative passwords.
Detecting the faults in any authentication tools and prevent compromised accessibilities.
Intercepting and preventing code injection attacks such as XSS, SQL, NoSQL queries, SMTP headers, XML parsers, etc.

The Importance of Vulnerability Assessment
While it can be a time consuming effort, vulnerability assessment is a cost-effective method of performing safety tests. In 2014, with diligent vulnerability assessment and proper evaluation of their cybersecurity measures, the retailer behemoth Target could have saved themselves from a massive layout of $120 million, paid for the legal settlement of their negligence in protecting customer information.
Moreover, with a consistent and comprehensive method of identifying and resolving security threats, vulnerability assessment can be hugely beneficial to any organizations in the following ways:
Protecting sensitive information of customers, employees and other stakeholders.
Preventing unauthorized access, and thus, saving the organization from other security risks in both online and offline.
Helping to intercept risks and threats early, even before an illegal security breach occurs.
Setting up appropriate prevention mechanism to reduce vulnerabilities and double up the security efforts.
Complying with the cybersecurity regulations such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, etc.
As security vulnerabilities come with massive financial, economic and legal ramification; vulnerability assessment is key to identify and remediate weaknesses when there is still time.

Types of Vulnerability Assessment
There are a few different types of vulnerability assessment. In no particular order, they are:
Network Based Scans: Mainly used to identify possible threats of cyberattacks in a network system, network-based scanning can also help identifying vulnerable devices and systems on a wireless or wired network.
Host-Based Scans: Used to vigorously assess the health of critical server systems, the host-based scans can identify weaknesses in server workstations and other similar hosts. It also provides a deeper insight about the ports and services, configuration settings, patch histories, etc.
Wireless Network Scans: This type of scans is beneficial in identifying points of attacks in the infrastructure of an organization’s wireless network. It is also used to validate the state of security configurations on the network.
Application Scans: As a method of detecting vulnerabilities in software, application scans enable to detect rogue configurations of web applications and their source codes.
Database Scans: Mainly beneficial in protecting database against SQL injection and other malicious attacks by identifying the weaknesses of a database.
The Process of Vulnerability Assessment
A vulnerability assessment process is consisting of four separate steps. Those are:
Testing: The first step is to identify weaknesses through vigorous testing. By using some automated tools or examining them manually, technicians assesses the health of servers, networks, applications, and other systems to detect any issues. It also involves plenty of research on vulnerability database, available vulnerability announcements, threat intelligence feeds, latest developments in the particular field, asset management system, etc.
Analysis: If there are any vulnerabilities found in the in the first step, this is the step to analyze the problems and figure out the root causes behind every single issue.
Assessment: As every weakness cannot be solved at once, at this stage, technicians try to figure the level of risks associated with each particular scenario. By considering a few key elements – the importance of affected systems, the types of data on risks, the potential ramification of possible attacks; they develop a list of priorities to solve a particular issue.
Remediation: As the name suggests, this is the step when different operational departments come together to figure out a viable and effective remedy for the vulnerabilities, depending on their level of risks. Some commonly used solutions include the introduction of new security protocols, updating the hardware and software of a vulnerable system, developing patches and implementing them in the source code, etc.

With the risks of cyberattacks increasing every day, and cyber criminals using sophisticated technologies; vulnerability assessment is very important for businesses and governments alike. It is a pretty straight-forward process that not only identify and analyzes the security vulnerabilities in all types of information systems, but also provides solutions for the problems. However, it can’t be a one-off procedure. For the maximum effectiveness, the process has to be repeated at regular intervals. Also, the strategies for vulnerability assessment need to be regularly updated to meet the demands of ever evolving threats.