Vulnerabilities are loopholes in a website that can be used by hackers to seep into your website. Then they can gain access to your website and make changes according to their preferences. This can damage the goodwill and reputation of the website and defame it among loyal and daily visitors. Therefore, it is advised to keep scanning your website randomly and detect such misconfigurations and vulnerabilities to lower the damage.
What is a Vulnerability Testing?
Vulnerability testing or assessment is a procedure to find out vulnerabilities in a website that acts as a loophole for the hackers to delve into your website. Vulnerability testing helps to detect such loopholes and cease them immediately. The procedure can be done manually or with the help of vulnerability scanners. It also helps to keep your website and applications protected. Such testing helps to give an overall view of the working of an application or a website. Hence, it is important to perform such scanning to detect these harmful spaces. A good working website or application is vulnerable to threats some or the other day. Therefore, it is advised to perform a vulnerability scanning before the hackers take advantage of these loopholes.
Steps followed in Vulnerability Scanning
Let us have a look at the process followed in a vulnerability scanning procedure:
- Planning– The step involves discussing with the customer the procedure of the scanning and how it will work. The step also involves defining the scope and rules of the scanning procedure and its benefits as well.
- Gathering Information– This step requires all the information about the website or application to be scanned. The information might include points like privilege requirements, business logic, and many such things.
- Testing Application– The step includes testing the application to detect the vulnerabilities and other loopholes. This can be done manually with the help of penetration testing under expert guidance or with the help of penetration tools. The step also helps to know the security standards and weaknesses of the application.
- Reporting– this is the final step of the whole vulnerability scanning procedure. It involves providing the customer with the reports of the scanning performed. The reports include all the vulnerabilities found in the depth of the core files of the application.
Importance of Vulnerability Testing
Though the development team of a business might follow the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), they might not be aware of the vulnerabilities delving into the application or website with every update. This might lead to some of the risks faced by your business; let us have a look at a few of them:
- Customer Loss
According to the survey conducted by OnePoll, people do not wish to conduct business with such organizations that have faced a personal data leak in the past inclusive of credit and debit card details. Hence, such incidences exploit the reputation of your website and defame it within no time. To lower such unfortunate incidences one should perform a vulnerability scanning in the earliest possible time.
- Financial Damage
Such hacks damage an organization and business finances. If the debit and credit card details of visitors of a business are leaked or hacked then it hampers the business financially. One needs to pay the loss of the customers who have suffered due to the damage. Therefore, it is advised to pay attention to such vulnerabilities and prepared for them as well.
Benefits of Vulnerability Testing
Let us dive into the importance and benefits of vulnerability testing:
- Cease Cyberattacks
A vulnerability scan helps the owner to identify the vulnerabilities before the cybercriminals do. It helps one to cease the loopholes and block the ways that can act as a passage for hackers. Cyber-attacks happen because the hackers identify the vulnerabilities in a website and take undue advantage of them. Therefore, scanning helps to block such pathways and lower the risk or damage done due to a hack.
- Saves time and Money
Automated scans keep a check on your website and keep informing you about the possibilities and occurred vulnerabilities. This helps to keep your website security updated. A website or application once hacked, then resolving the damage is a time and money-consuming process. Hence, to save this time and money one should perform regular vulnerability scans, especially by enormous organizations.
- Data Protection
Vulnerability scanning ensures the owner and visitors that their data is safe and secured. Though the scanning is not mandatory by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but it does define that the companies keep their clientele information safe and at bay from any damage. Therefore, it is necessary to have a vulnerability assessment to keep the data secured and protect it from any form of damage.
Conclusion
The following write-up highlights the advantages of vulnerability scanning and also defines how useful it is for organizations and various businesses. Therefore, one should not be negligible about the security of their website and its loyal customers.