Vulnerability Assessment

The first step to improving your security is knowing where you're exposed. A vulnerability assessment gives you a complete picture of your technical risks, prioritized by criticality.

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Vulnerability assessment vs. pentesting: what does your company need?

A vulnerability assessment (VA) identifies and classifies known vulnerabilities in your systems through scanning and technical review, without actively exploiting them. Pentesting goes a step further: an expert attempts to exploit those vulnerabilities to demonstrate real impact. A VA is ideal as a periodic review or starting point; pentesting is necessary to demonstrate real impact, meet advanced regulatory requirements, or prepare for a red team exercise.

What the vulnerability assessment covers

  • Vulnerability scanning of internal network and external perimeter
  • Identification of active CVEs in your technology stack
  • Review of security configurations (hardening)
  • Assessment of outdated and unsupported software (EOL)
  • Analysis of unnecessarily exposed services
  • Prioritization by CVSS v3.1/v4.0 and real exploitability (CISA KEV)
  • IT asset inventory as a by-product of the scan
  • Available as a recurring monthly or quarterly service

Process

  1. Scope definition: We identify all in-scope assets: IPs, network ranges, web applications, servers.
  2. Automated scanning: Scanning with specialized tools (Nessus, OpenVAS, Nuclei) to detect CVEs and misconfigurations.
  3. Manual validation: Our experts review and validate the results to remove false positives and add context.
  4. Intelligent prioritization: We classify findings by real criticality: CVSS v4 plus active exploitability plus business impact.
  5. Report and follow-up: We deliver the report with a remediation roadmap and follow up until closure.

Deliverables

  • Inventory of assets identified during the scan
  • Prioritized list of vulnerabilities with CVSS v4 and exploitability
  • Executive report with overall risk summary
  • Technical report detailing each vulnerability and remediation recommendation
  • Comparison with previous cycles if delivered as a recurring service

When a vulnerability assessment is enough

  • Periodic security review without needing to demonstrate exploitability
  • Audit prior to a pentest to narrow down the scope
  • Inventory of security technical debt in legacy systems
  • Verification of remediation after a previous pentest
  • Compliance with internal or client audit requirements

Frequently asked questions

Is a vulnerability assessment enough to comply with NIS2 or ISO 27001?

It depends on the required maturity level. NIS2 and ISO 27001 require continuous vulnerability management, which a recurring VA can cover. To demonstrate real impact or for red team assessments, pentesting is required.

How often should I run a vulnerability assessment?

We recommend a monthly cycle for critical assets and quarterly for the rest. After significant infrastructure changes (a new application, cloud migration, etc.) we always recommend a one-off assessment.

Does the VA include web applications?

Yes. The scope can include network infrastructure, servers, web applications and APIs. We also offer the vulnerability assessment as a first step before a full web pentest.

How is it different from a penetration test?

A vulnerability assessment identifies and classifies known weaknesses in an automated, recurring way, with manual validation of the relevant findings. A penetration test goes further: it exploits those weaknesses, chains flaws together and demonstrates real business impact. The assessment answers what you have exposed; the pentest answers how far an attacker can actually get.

How do you prioritize the findings?

We combine three signals instead of relying on theoretical severity alone: CVSS for technical impact, EPSS for the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, and the CISA KEV catalog for what is already being exploited. A CVSS 9.8 with no observed exploitation is rarely more urgent than a 7.5 with a public exploit in circulation.

What do you do about false positives?

We discard them before the report reaches you. A scanner with no human review produces noise that eventually kills the process: the team stops reading the reports. We manually validate high- and medium-severity findings, and we document why anything we discard was discarded.

Can scanning affect system performance?

We work with intensity profiles matched to the environment and agree execution windows for sensitive assets. In production we use non-intrusive configurations by default. If a specific test carries a risk of downtime, we check with you before running it, never afterwards.

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Scope your project · Request a vulnerability assessment