Today, penetration testing is often confused with vulnerability assessments, red team assessments, and other security assessments. However, there are some differences between them, as follows:
- Vulnerability assessment: This is the process of identifying vulnerabilities and risks in systems. In a vulnerability assessment, the vulnerability is not exploited. It merely highlights the risks so that the business can identify the risks and plan for remediation.
- Penetration testing: This is the authorized process of finding and using vulnerabilities to perform an intrusion into a network, application, or host in a predefined time frame. Penetration testing can be conducted by an internal team or an external third party. Penetration testing goes one step further as opposed to a vulnerability assessment, in that a penetration test exploits the vulnerability...