Vulnerability Assessment Flashcards
6 cards from real CSOC practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 Vulnerability Assessment flashcards as text
What is the difference between a vulnerability assessment and a penetration test?
Answer: A vulnerability assessment identifies and reports vulnerabilities without exploiting them; a penetration test actively exploits vulnerabilities to demonstrate real-world impact
A vulnerability assessment identifies, classifies, and reports known vulnerabilities in a system. A penetration test goes further by actively attempting to exploit those vulnerabilities, demonstrating the realistic impact of a successful attack.
What is the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) used for?
Answer: To provide a standardised numerical score indicating the severity of a cybersecurity vulnerability
CVSS provides a standardised scoring system that rates the severity of vulnerabilities on a scale from 0 to 10, considering factors such as exploitability, impact, and the environment. It helps organisations prioritise which vulnerabilities to remediate first.
What does a vulnerability scanner do in a cybersecurity context?
Answer: It automatically scans systems and networks to identify known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and security weaknesses
A vulnerability scanner probes systems and networks against a database of known vulnerabilities and common misconfigurations, producing a report of identified weaknesses for security teams to review and prioritise for remediation.
What is 'attack surface' in cybersecurity and why is reducing it important?
Answer: The sum of all points where an attacker can try to enter or extract data from a system; reducing it limits the opportunities available to attackers
The attack surface encompasses all possible entry points, interfaces, and exposed components that an attacker could exploit. Reducing the attack surface — by removing unnecessary services, ports, and features — limits the opportunities for attack.
What is the primary purpose of a vulnerability management programme?
Answer: To systematically identify, prioritise, remediate, and verify fixes for security vulnerabilities across an organisation's IT assets on a continuous basis
A vulnerability management programme is a continuous process encompassing discovery of vulnerabilities, risk-based prioritisation, remediation, and verification that fixes have been effective. It reduces the window of exposure between vulnerability discovery and patching.
What does it mean when a vulnerability is described as 'actively exploited in the wild'?
Answer: Attackers are currently using the vulnerability to compromise real systems and organisations
When a vulnerability is described as 'actively exploited in the wild', it means that real-world attackers are currently using it to compromise systems. Such vulnerabilities require immediate prioritised patching regardless of their CVSS score.