What Is Vulnerability Testing

There have never been as numerous and as complex a set of threats faced by software as there are today. As organizations handle more sensitive data, expand their digital footprints, and connect more powerful APIs and LLM-driven solutions, identifying potential security flaws has become a critical step in reducing their cyber risk and improving overall posture.

Vulnerability testing helps detect, assess, and remediate security flaws before attackers can exploit them, offering a proactive method to reduce overall risk. Whether you’re developing new web applications or maintaining legacy systems, vulnerability testing plays a key role in maintaining your overall security posture.

Today, we’re going to dive into the core concepts of vulnerability testing. We’ll look at its types, the testing process itself, and identify some tools and best practices that you can deploy today to help secure your systems and improve your security outcomes.

What is Vulnerability Testing?

Vulnerability testing, also known as vulnerability assessment, is a systematic process for identifying, analyzing, and addressing potential security vulnerabilities across systems, applications, and networks. This testing typically leverages powerful tools to evaluate the effectiveness of security controls and highlight gaps in protection.

Vulnerability testing aims to do a few things:

• Identify vulnerabilities in systems before attackers do, giving you time to deal with these issues while they are still internal or theoretical
• Assess the severity of vulnerabilities identified in order to prioritize response and categorize the potential severity of abuse
• Recommend steps to mitigate vulnerabilities, using lifecycle planning and severity estimations to plan these improvements over time
• Improve the overall security posture to produce better security outcomes

Unlike penetration testing, which simulates real attacks, vulnerability testing is generally passive or automated and focuses on identifying known vulnerabilities using databases and scanning tools. This process tests across several common attack vectors and areas of concern, including:

• Web applications and their various frontend technologies
• Network devices and services, especially when they are at the edge of a larger service network
• Codebases and software components, which can introduce issues at the base level of the application itself
• Cloud environments and asset management systems, which can influence the system in ways both obvious and hidden

Types of Vulnerability Testing

Before we dive into specific best practices and tooling solutions, it helps to look at the specific kinds of vulnerability testing that are commonly deployed. While there are many ways to categorize testing, the following categories are relatively common and are a generalized way of looking at these tooling focuses.

Application Vulnerability Testing

In the world of application vulnerability testing, you generally have three broad categories. The first, Static Application Security Testing (SAST), looks at the source code before it is deployed, looking for common errors, issues, misconfigurations, and other insecurities. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), on the other hand, looks at dynamic code as it runs and is compiled. Contrary to static code, which looks at the base code before deployment, dynamic code systems target running code and systems. Finally, Software Composition Analysis (SCA) looks specifically at security flaws in web and mobile applications based on integrated open-source and third-party integrations.

Database Vulnerability Testing

This kind of testing focuses on security gaps resulting from the databases connected to critical servers and services. Sensitive data systems and connections can be vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, insecure configurations, or other such vulnerabilities, representing a huge body of potential security risks.

This type of testing can also help identify potential risk vectors for data itself, allowing providers to assess vulnerabilities as well as identify potential financial or regulatory measures that might be enacted in the case of a data theft or exposure.

Cloud Infrastructure and Big Data Testing

This sort of testing focuses on misconfigurations and potential vulnerabilities arising from the use of cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and GCP. This testing evaluates systems with high data throughput or unique device communication protocols for potential security weaknesses. When considering big data systems, this also considers software vulnerabilities and potential issues with network services and network protocols, which may fail while handling such large amounts of critical information.

Vulnerability Testing Process

An effective vulnerability testing process typically follows these stages:

1 – Planning and Scoping

In this stage, you need to define the scope of your testing and the objectives you’re targeting. This will include your target systems and components – for instance, whether you’re looking at code injection attacks or just internal ones, what systems you want to identify security weaknesses in, and how broad this testing should be. This will also be where you establish your rules of engagement with your stakeholders so that everyone is on the same timeline and directional pathway.

2 – Information Gathering

Next, you’ll need to build your information base for testing. You’ll need to map assets and network topology to understand your network services, your operational base, and the systems that interconnect with one another. From here, you’ll need to identify system components responsible for communication and authentication/authorization, as well as data storage.

3 – Vulnerability Scanning

Now you can finally launch into your vulnerability scanning properly. At this stage, you’ll use automated tools to detect known vulnerabilities and conduct static and dynamic testing to identify unknown vulnerabilities. You’ll need a trusted provider at this stage, especially as you need to validate results to reduce false positives and make your testing truly effective.

4 – Vulnerability Analysis

With your vulnerability scanning complete, you’ll need to launch into your vulnerability assessment process. At this stage, you’ll take all of the data you’ve generated and prioritize vulnerabilities based on severity, exploitability, and asset criticality. The best way to do this is to build a system of scoring and identification. You can reference Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) metrics or generate your own metrics – either way, you’ll need to have a common system for understanding severity and applicability.

5 – Remediation and Retesting

In this stage, remediation efforts will take a front and center role. Security teams will apply patches, adjust security controls, and pivot applications to improve the overall posture of connected systems. In some cases, this may require significant rebuilding to align services against security best practices. At the end of this process, you’ll need to re-test to ensure that your vulnerabilities have been mitigated.

Best Practices

In order to make the best of your development and codebase, you should align with some common best practices. These include:

• Integrate with the SDLC – you should embed vulnerability testing during early phases of software development to ensure that your overall development covers a wide range of potential issues throughout your entire codebase and tooling set.
• Use multiple vulnerability scanners – combine tools for broader coverage and reduced blind spots. While you should adopt as few tools as possible to align cost management and ensure low complexity, you need to prioritize coverage more than anything.
• Automate scans – you should schedule automated scans for consistency and coverage throughout the development and deployment cycle. Manual testing is principally limited by humans who run it, so automated testing will give you better agility and flexibility in testing.
• Prioritize by risk – use CVSS and business impact metrics to focus on critical vulnerabilities and categorize these risks based on actual threat. This will help you manage your testing and remediation process effectively.
• Validate findings – perform manual verification to reduce false positives, and use a trusted software solution with proven accuracy and consideration for detail.
• Document everything – keep detailed logs for audit trails and future reference. Use these documents to improve your processes, train development teams, and improve the overall development and deployment process.

Challenges and Limitations

Users of these tools must take into consideration some significant challenges and limitations. The best solution for your given codebase is going to require significant solutions in order to mitigate these common categories:

• False Positives – automated tools can report non-issues, wasting time and resources chasing issues that don’t actually exist.
• Coverage Gaps – no single tool covers all asset types or vulnerability categories; accordingly, you should seek tooling that offers the most comprehensive set of functions in a given domain of focus.
• Skill Requirements – effective analysis often requires experienced personnel; ensure you use tooling that doesn’t have overly onerous learning curves and complex systems.
• Frequent Updates Needed – tools and databases must stay current to detect emerging threats.
• Testing Phase Conflicts – running active testing in production environments can be risky, so make sure you are using a tool that is cognizant of these requirements and limitations.

Compliance and Industry Standards

Vulnerability testing is essential for meeting numerous compliance mandates. In order to meet these standards, you must provide significant documentation that you have met these requirements:

• PCI DSS – requires regular vulnerability scans and remediation
• HIPAA – demands ongoing risk assessments to protect sensitive health data
• ISO 27001 – recommends regular vulnerability assessments
• NIST – provides guidelines for security testing under SP 800-53 and SP 800-115

Popular Tools for Vulnerability Testing

StackHawk

StackHawk is a modern DAST solution built for developers. It integrates directly into CI/CD pipelines and focuses on testing web applications and APIs for vulnerabilities before they reach production.

Benefits

• CI/CD native with fast automated feedback
• API and modern web app scanning support
• Actionable, developer-friendly findings
• Supports OpenAPI, GraphQL, and SOAP testing

Qualys

Qualys offers a cloud-based vulnerability management suite that covers everything from asset discovery to continuous monitoring. It’s widely adopted in enterprise settings.

Benefits

• Continuous monitoring and automated patch workflows
• Built-in threat intelligence and prioritization

Burp Suite

Burp Suite by PortSwigger is a widely used toolkit for web application security testing. Its combination of automated and manual tools makes it ideal for penetration testers and AppSec teams.

Benefits

• Plugin ecosystem and API integration
• Real-time traffic interception and modification

Nikto

Nikto is a lightweight, command-line web server scanner. It focuses on identifying outdated software, misconfigurations, and insecure files or scripts on web servers.

Benefits

• Open-source and fast to deploy
• Useful for quick assessments and legacy systems

Rapid7 InsightVM

InsightVM is a modern vulnerability management tool that extends scanning into remediation tracking and live dashboards. It supports hybrid environments and integrates with ticketing systems.

Benefits

• Risk-based prioritization with threat context
• Supports cloud and on-prem environments

Acunetix

Acunetix is a full-featured web vulnerability scanner that provides both DAST and IAST capabilities. It’s known for speed, accuracy, and low false positive rates.

Benefits

• Compliance reporting (PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO)
• Great for scanning single-page applications (SPAs)

Veracode

Veracode specializes in SAST and offers comprehensive application security testing as a service. It’s tailored for enterprise CI/CD pipelines and secure SDLC initiatives.

Benefits

• Strong static code analysis for multiple languages
• Developer-friendly remediation guidance

Conclusion

Vulnerability testing is a foundational practice in the process of securing modern digital environments. It empowers organizations to identify potential vulnerabilities, assess risks to their systems, and implement necessary security measures before attackers exploit them.

By incorporating vulnerability testing into the software development life cycle and ongoing operations, businesses can maintain a strong security posture, comply with regulatory requirements, and reduce exposure to emerging threats.

To stay ahead, organizations must adopt the right vulnerability testing tools, follow best practices, and invest in continuous improvement of their vulnerability management programs. StackHawk can help you get ahead of the game, detecting and managing threats proactively with little overhead! To get started, request a free demo today!