Which type of scanning checks for known weaknesses to determine if a system is exploitable?

Which type of scanning checks for known weaknesses to determine if a system is exploitable?

• A. Network Scanning
• B. SYN
• C. Vulnerability Scanning
• D. ACK

Answer: (C)

Vulnerability scanning focuses on identifying known weaknesses that could be exploited. It checks systems against catalogs of known flaws (such as CVEs) and insecure configurations to see if patches are missing, credentials are weak or default, or services are misconfigured. Finding these weaknesses helps determine if an attacker could actually exploit the system. Network scanning, by contrast, is about discovering which hosts are reachable and which ports or services are open, not whether those services have known flaws. The terms SYN and ACK refer to TCP handshake steps used in certain port-scanning techniques, not to assessing exploitability. So scanning for known weaknesses that could be exploited is the vulnerability scanning approach.

Vulnerability scanning focuses on identifying known weaknesses that could be exploited. It checks systems against catalogs of known flaws (such as CVEs) and insecure configurations to see if patches are missing, credentials are weak or default, or services are misconfigured. Finding these weaknesses helps determine if an attacker could actually exploit the system.

Network scanning, by contrast, is about discovering which hosts are reachable and which ports or services are open, not whether those services have known flaws. The terms SYN and ACK refer to TCP handshake steps used in certain port-scanning techniques, not to assessing exploitability. So scanning for known weaknesses that could be exploited is the vulnerability scanning approach.