PENETRATION TESTING VS VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT

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There is often some confusion between penetration testing and vulnerability assessment. The two terms are related but penetration testing has more of an emphasis on gaining as much access as possible while vulnerability assessment places the emphasis on identifying areas that are vulnerable to the attack. An automated vulnerability scanner will often identify possible vulnerabilities based on service banners or other network responses that are not in fact what they seem.

A vulnerability assessor will stop just before compromising a system, whereas a penetration tester will go as far as they can within the scope of the contract. It is important to keep in mind that you are dealing with a Test.  ̳A penetration test is like any other test in the sense that it is a sampling of all possible systems and configurations. Unless the contractor is hired to test only a single system, they will be unable to identify and penetrate all possible systems using all possible vulnerabilities. As such, any Penetration Test is a sampling of the environment. Furthermore, most testers will go after the easiest targets first. Vulnerability Assessment searches and checks the infrastructure to detect vulnerabilities, whereas penetration testing intends to exploit the vulnerabilities to probe the damage that could result from the vulnerabilities. VA is executed by automated tools, whereas penetration testing is a totally manual process. VA is executed by commercial tools, whereas penetration testing is executed by public processes.