Cybersecurity Essentials: What is VAPT & Why is it Important?
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing, or VAPT, are cyber security testing tools and techniques that are centered around identifying vulnerabilities in the server, network, and system infrastructure. Both Vulnerability Assessment as well as Penetration Testing serve different purposes in cyber security but are performed to attain goals that complement each other.
In this blog, we talk about what Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing are, how the two work together to secure your organization’s network, and why is VAPT important for your organization’s cybersecurity plan.
What is a Vulnerability Assessment?
Vulnerability Assessment is a quick automated review of an infrastructure’s servers, network devices, and systems. In VAPT, a Vulnerability Assessment is done to identify any critical configuration issues and vulnerabilities that malicious attackers might take advantage of. It answers the question: What are the issues in my organization network, system, and server?.
Tools for vulnerability assessment help in simply discovering vulnerabilities. The VA tools and scanners alert organizations about the preexisting flaws in their code and their location. However, Vulnerability Testing cannot differentiate between the flaws that can be exploited to cause any harm and those that can’t.
What is Penetration Testing?
A Penetration Test is an extensive and detailed test conducted by experts to identify the numerous possible routes from where attackers may break into a system or network. Penetration Tests, also known as PenTests, help in answering the question: What can cyber attackers do to break into a network?
Apart from vulnerabilities, Penetration Testing (PT) helps in identifying the level of the potential damage the vulnerability might cause if exploited. The test shows how damaging a vulnerability could be in reality if exploited. It also helps in gauging the compromise an attacker may carry out if they get past the perimeter.
How do the two technologies work together?
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing is a process used for finding security bugs, issues, flaws, and vulnerabilities within a software program, a computer network, a system, or a server. As the two tests have different purposes, VAPT can be misunderstood as 2 different network and security testing techniques.
Interestingly, the two testing processes complement each other and are usually combined to yield better results. The objective of Vulnerability Assessments is entirely to look for and find bugs that can become a way for an attacker to penetrate a system. Penetration Testing is about exploring the bug by exploiting it to assess how much damage can be caused if exploited in reality.
Why is Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) important?
Regardless of which industry your company belongs to, VAPT is a must. Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing is all about assessment and verification of the cyber security situation of your company. VAPT is crucial for any business because of the following reasons:
- VAPT provides organizations with information and in-depth insights about potential cyber security threats
- It helps companies identify errors in coding made by programmers that may lead to cyber-attacks
- VAPT provides end-to-end risk management and safeguards organizations from loss of money and reputation
- It secures software and apps from external as well as internal attacks
- It assists in assessing the tolerance of a network or system in case of cyber attacks
- It helps in the effective implementation of the cyber security strategy of the company
- It significantly reduces the risk of business downtime
Not securing data and systems can make companies lose out on a lot of money. It can also stain the company’s reputation and shake up its credibility in the market.
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing helps in checking whether your organization is safe from cyber-attacks or not. It helps you discover all potential attack surfaces and security loopholes so that you can fix them before any damage occurs. It also allows data security compliance to store customer data in applications and networks and protect them against any risk of attack.
At PruTech Solutions, we offer cutting-edge, end-to-end cyber security consulting solutions to our clients. Click here to learn more about our cyber security consulting.