Difference Between Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing

Difference Between Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing

Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing are two terms that are often used together and are also confused with each other. Both are ways to discover vulnerabilities in your website, application, network or system, but what are the differences?

What is a Vulnerability Assessment?

With a Vulnerability Assessment, we test in such a way that as many vulnerabilities as possible are found without spending time trying to exploit them to see how far you can get. Finding more vulnerabilities is often more valuable because it allows to reduce risks more effectively: exploring wide, instead of (only) deep.

What is a Pentest?

Penetration Testing (or pentesting) means that tests are performed from the perspective of an attacker, and when a vulnerability is found, our ethical hackers exploit the weak spot to see how deep or far an attacker can get. During a penetration test, it is therefore only of secondary importance whether there are multiple vulnerabilities. The aim of a pentest is to illustrate as clearly as possible what the consequences of one issue with your IT security could be, and what that would mean to your organization.

The Strength of the Combination, VA/PT

With our combined service Vulnerability Assessment and Pentest (VA/PT) you will receive a complete overview of the found vulnerabilities and will discover what the impact would be of leaving such vulnerabilities unpatched. Based on these test results, Bureau Veritas Cybersecurity can guide you and give advice on how to improve your cyber resilience.
Learn more about VA/PT >

CONTACT US >

DOWNLOAD FACT SHEET

DOWNLOAD FACTSHEET

Explains the scope, targets and technologies of Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration testing

Download

OVERVIEW OF DIFFERENCES

Aspect

Vulnerability Assessment

Penetration Testing

Scope

Wide, exploratory by nature

Deep focus on specific vulnerability

Goal

Find as many vulnerabilities as possible.

Exploit discovered vulnerability to reach admin/root level

Duration

Quick to complete, automated

Time consuming, manual work

False Positives

Are produced, especially when automated

Are manually filtered out

Impact

Will not impact business processes

Might disrupt business processes

Test methods

Test methods Authenticated and unauthenticated

Black/White/Grey/Crystal-box

Frequency

Organizational Attack Surface

Critical assets (crown jewels)

Interaction

Full interaction with client team

None, or limited during testing

Report

Partial details on problem, no mitigation advice.

Full details of vulnerability exploitation and how to mitigate.

Costs

Cost-effective since it can be automated

Relatively costly because of duration and requires highly skilled knowledge

Results

Overview of all current vulnerabilities

Illustrate what consequences a vulnerability could have for your organization

TELL ME MORE ABOUT VA/PT

First Name

Last Name

Company / Organization

Email

Phone Number

Country

How can we help you?

I give permission to process my data as described in the Privacy Policy and agree to the Terms and Conditions.

I consent to let Bureau Veritas Cybersecurity use this data to provide me with additional information from their services, events or topics that may be of interest to me

Why choose Bureau Veritas Cybersecurity

Bureau Veritas Cybersecurity is your expert partner in cybersecurity. We help organizations identify risks, strengthen defenses and comply with cybersecurity standards and regulations. Our services cover people, processes and technology, ranging from awareness training and social engineering to security advice, compliance and penetration testing.

We operate across IT, OT and IoT environments, supporting both digital systems and connected products. With over 300 cybersecurity professionals worldwide, we combine deep technical expertise with a global presence. Bureau Veritas Cybersecurity is part of the Bureau Veritas Group, a global leader in testing, inspection and certification.