What is Vulnerability Testing? Vulnerability testing is an assessment used to evaluate application security by identifying, diagnosing, and triaging application vulnerabilities. The entire process requires application security (AppSec) teams to plan vulnerability tests and analyze results.

Types of vulnerability include social, cognitive, environmental, emotional or military.

What is vulnerability analysis in cyber security?

Definition. A vulnerability assessment is the testing process used to identify and assign severity levels to as many security defects as possible in a given timeframe. This process may involve automated and manual techniques with varying degrees of rigor and an emphasis on comprehensive coverage.

A vulnerability assessment is the testing process used to identify and assign severity levels to as many security defects as possible in a given timeframe. This process may involve automated and manual techniques with varying degrees of rigor and an emphasis on comprehensive coverage. Using a risk-based approach, vulnerability assessments may target different layers of technology, the most common being host-, network-, and application-layer assessments.

Vulnerability testing helps organizations identify vulnerabilities in their software and supporting infrastructure before a compromise can take place. But, what exactly is a software vulnerability?

A vulnerability can be defined in two ways:
  1. A bug in code or a flaw in software design that can be exploited to cause harm. Exploitation may occur via an authenticated or unauthenticated attacker.
  2. A gap in security procedures or a weakness in internal controls that when exploited results in a security breach.