Which type of scanning is used to identify known weaknesses and assess exploitability?

Which type of scanning is used to identify known weaknesses and assess exploitability?

• A. Vulnerability Scanning
• B. Network Scanning
• C. Port Scanning
• D. NS Lookup

Answer: (A)

Vulnerability scanning focuses on finding known weaknesses in systems, software, and configurations by checking them against a database of published vulnerabilities. It not only flags missing patches and misconfigurations but also provides an assessment of exploitability by linking to known exploits and giving severity scores to help prioritize remediation. By contrast, network scanning identifies which hosts are reachable and active, port scanning reveals which network ports are open and what services might be exposed, and NS Lookup (a DNS query tool) resolves domain names to IPs and retrieves DNS records—none of which directly determine specific vulnerabilities or how easily they could be exploited.

Vulnerability scanning focuses on finding known weaknesses in systems, software, and configurations by checking them against a database of published vulnerabilities. It not only flags missing patches and misconfigurations but also provides an assessment of exploitability by linking to known exploits and giving severity scores to help prioritize remediation. By contrast, network scanning identifies which hosts are reachable and active, port scanning reveals which network ports are open and what services might be exposed, and NS Lookup (a DNS query tool) resolves domain names to IPs and retrieves DNS records—none of which directly determine specific vulnerabilities or how easily they could be exploited.