Vulnerability Assessment

Vulnerability Assessment is scanning your server or network to find security vulnerabilities before they are found by malicious hackers. Vulnerability assessment tools can aid in this process. Your vulnerability assessment can locate problems in your network and allow you the deal with the problem before any malicious activity occurs. Vulnerability assessments can also locate problems in settings and permissions of some services which may be exploited. This is why vulnerability assessment is so important to protecting your network. Assessments are typically performed according to the following steps:

• Locating and cataloging all available services, programs, users, etc..
• Assigning quantifiable value and importance to these services.
• Identifying the vulnerabilities or potential threats to each resource.
• Mitigating or eliminating the most serious vulnerabilities for the most valuable resources.

Why Vulnerability Assessment?

The need to insure that computer systems and applications are secure has never been greater. Computers hold many types of sensitive data including personal and corporate financial records, medical records, legal documents, intellectual property, credit card numbers, HR records, sales and marketing data and much more. If this information is stolen, lost, altered or publicly disclosed, the results could be catastrophic. Not only could a company or individual suffer embarrassment or disruption of operations, there is the very real specter of civil or criminal legal action. Clearly computers must be made as safe as possible.