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Vulnerability scanning is vital for spotting and mapping out hidden weaknesses that may put businesses at risk from cyberattacks and data loss. A vulnerability scanning solution helps automate this process and provides actionable insights across network, applications, and cloud infrastructure.
There are several types of vulnerability scanning, too, which assess different areas and concerns within networks and infrastructures. To gain complete coverage and insight into how secure your systems are, it’s vital to understand what different types of scanning do, and how to make the most of them.
In this guide, we explore the core types of vulnerability scanning, key scanning classifications, specialized techniques, and how you can choose the best scanning approach for your data protection needs.
Core Types of Vulnerability Scanning
The core types of vulnerability scanning we recommend to our clients include network, host-based, web application, static application, and cloud and container. All five cover different areas at risk from exploitable weaknesses.
Let’s explore each of these types in detail:
1. Network Vulnerability Scanning
Network vulnerability scanning spots weaknesses across your networking infrastructure. That covers all hardware and devices connected, accounting for vulnerabilities such as open ports, misconfigurations, and access control issues.
This type of scanning is vital for mapping out your network and understanding the different roles that hardware and endpoints play in your overall security. Ultimately, it seeks out exploitable access points—internal and external—that hackers can use.
2. Host-Based Vulnerability Scanning
Host-based vulnerability scanning investigates specific devices, or hosts, for misconfigurations and weaknesses. For example, a host-based scan will assess whether or not software is up to date, and how much access attackers can potentially gain.
Running host-based scans helps to protect individual devices on a broader network, therefore fortifying your defenses against hacking even further. This type of scanning can reveal whether or not devices are patched and if they have adequate firewalls.
Scanning results also help you to protect other hosts on the same network—you can take actions that isolate threats to specific hosts should they arise.
3. Web Application Vulnerability Scanning (DAST)
Web application vulnerability scanning supports public-facing, internet-based services such as websites, mobile sites and apps, and web forms. For example, this type of scanning can help to prevent cross-site scripting, or XSS, which allows hackers to release malicious code.
XSS is certainly nothing to be toyed with:
“Over 60% of all website applications are statistically vulnerable to XSS attacks. Although mitigating 100% of attacks may be unlikely, there are baseline measures you can take to safeguard valuable business assets and data.”
Gilad David Maayan, IEEE Computer Society
DAST, or Dynamic Application Security Testing, is one such measure we recommend to greatly protect you against such attacks. This automated scanning technique analyzes live applications or Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) from the outside-in, using tools that can run continuously without manual intervention to identify vulnerabilities like Sequence Query Language (SQL) injection and XSS.
4. Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
SAST is an automated vulnerability scanning technique that analyzes source code and takes place early in an application’s development cycle. Specifically, this helps developers to spot errors and flaws in code before an application goes live.
One of the major benefits of SAST is that it offers real-time insights into issues to be fixed before public release. Hypothetically, this helps prevent downtime and loss of business you may experience by taking projects offline.
Both DAST and SAST are fully automated processes that can run without human intervention, distinguishing them from manual penetration testing techniques. While security experts may enhance results through analysis and interpretation, the core scanning processes require no manual testing or human-led attack simulation.
We recommend running DAST and SAST scanning throughout the app development cycle for complete coverage. For example, you may need to run SAST regularly as part of CI/CD vulnerability scanning until programs go live and DAST once applications are deployed and running.
5. Cloud & Container Vulnerability Scanning
Cloud vulnerability scanning covers your complete cloud infrastructure—so, any software, accounts, servers, storage, etc., you hold in the cloud. Cloud scanning helps to ensure access controls are airtight and that any tenancies or partnerships shared with third parties are monitored for malicious activity.
Container vulnerability scanning goes a little deeper, specifically analyzing potential flaws in individual software packages. Containers effectively allow applications to run via the cloud—meaning, like other elements of your physical network and infrastructure, there’s also a risk of exploitable weaknesses.
Key Scanning Classifications
Vulnerability scanning is split into four key classifications – credentialed (which require access), uncredentialed (which are “blind” scans), internal, and external.
Our experts always recommend adopting a mix of these scan classifications to cover as many potential vulnerabilities as possible. Otherwise, you never know what you might miss.
Let’s explore the main differences between these two classification pairs.
Credentialed vs Uncredentialed Scanning
Credentialed scanning requires administrative access or controls to access in-depth information and perform deeper analyses. Uncredentialed scanning, meanwhile, doesn’t have access control—it’s a “blind” approach that mimics the activity of an average hacker without privileged access. These classifications are also commonly known as authenticated scanning and unauthenticated scanning.
There are benefits to both of these approaches. For example, credentialed scanning goes in-depth and generally produces more accurate, actionable results.
That said, uncredentialed scans are much less intensive and are often used to gain insight into what attackers can see and do. It’s considered a much simpler approach—one we suggest running ahead of deeper credentialed scans and penetration tests.
Internal vs External Scanning
Internal scanning takes place within your network or infrastructure. External scanning, meanwhile, takes place outside of your perimeter security systems, from the position of an attacker breaking in.
While it can be argued that internal scanning offers more in-depth insights, the weaknesses revealed by external scanning cover a different side of the same coin.
Internal scans reveal what may be exploitable by hackers once they gain access to your systems, or by bad actors who act maliciously from within your company. External scans, on the other hand, assess public-facing digital assets such as apps and web forms that attackers can use to break in.
Specialized Scanning Techniques
Breach and Attack Simulations (BAS) and Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) are two of the most insightful scanning techniques used by professionals to assess security robustness.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
BAS techniques involve automating continuous simulated cyberattacks to provide insightful real-world analysis. Using BAS is similar to running external penetration testing or red team exercises, which involve trying known attack vectors to ascertain whether or not systems are protected enough.
BAS tools largely simulate scenarios such as malware and ransomware attacks, phishing, infiltration, and endpoint exploitation. At the end of analysis, BAS tools report what attacks were tested, what the results were, and what could be discovered.
Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)
IAST tools assess vulnerabilities in live applications and code, taking place in real time. These tools use sensors to track how targets behave when they are interacted with in specific ways, therefore analyzing how they might respond to different attacks.
IAST processes are highly flexible because they don’t require credentials to run—it’s uncredentialed scanning that doesn’t require access to source code or any inner workings. Crucially, IAST can take place when applications are live therefore subjecting them to real-world hacking rehearsals.
OWASP explores how IAST operates in further detail—we recommend reading if you’re unsure of which approaches will work best for your own scanning operations.
Choosing the Right Vulnerability Scanning Approach
When choosing a vulnerability scanning approach, you need to consider the assets you want to scan, the risks they’re likely to face, compliance standards you need to follow, your overall security goals, and how many tools you can feasibly budget for and implement.
Here are the key areas to consider with some questions to ask to help you choose the right approach and tools.
| Key Area | Questions to Consider |
|---|---|
| Assets and scope | How many assets do you need to protect? Do you need to scan for vulnerabilities in the cloud and live applications? Do you need in-depth tools to help spot flaws in shadow IT devices? Will internal or external scanning—or a blend of both—protect enough of your assets? |
| Risk tolerance and assessments | Do you have particularly sensitive data and systems you need to prioritize over others? Do you need to prioritize external threats or internal risks? How in-depth do you need scanning to go—do you need a credentialed or uncredentialed approach? |
| Compliance requirements | Which compliance standards do you need to adhere to? Do you hold cardholder data? Do you work with clients and customers based in the European Union? |
| Security goals | Do you need to prioritize preventing data breaches? Are you focused on protecting your infrastructure against internal threats? Do you need to tighten up your app development process? |
| Budget and implementation | Do you have the budget and operational space and ability to manage multiple vulnerability scanning vectors at once? Will running several vulnerability scanning tools simultaneously disrupt your operations? |
Following these points will help you line up an effective scanning strategy and tools that can help to protect you against threats most likely to cause you harm.
For example, using the above, you may decide you need to adopt an external, non-credentialed vulnerability scanning strategy to protect your public-facing mobile app. However, based on your budget and operational availability, you may only choose to run these scans periodically and after you make developmental changes.
Conclusion
Vulnerability scanning may only be the first step towards a robust cybersecurity posture, but there are many different types and niches to help you find myriad weaknesses. Ultimately, we recommend that all our clients take care to consider which approaches and tools will help them build towards their security goals.
It’s just one facet of cybersecurity VikingCloud is always on hand to help with. If you’d like to know more about the different types of vulnerability scanning and cybersecurity support we have to offer, contact us today for a free consultation.
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