Vulnerability Assessment

the word "vulnerability" describes a problem (such as a programming bug or common
misconfiguration) that allows a system to be attacked or broken into.
A vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying, quantifying, and prioritizing (or
ranking) the vulnerabilities in a system.
Vulnerability assessments can be conducted for small businesses to large regional infrastructures.
Vulnerability from the perspective of Disaster Management means assessing the threats from
potential hazards to the population and to the infrastructure developed in that particular region. It can be
done in political, social, economic and in environmental fields.


Assessments are typically performed according to the following steps:
1. Cataloging assets and capabilities (resources) in a system.
2. Assigning quantifiable value (or at least rank order) and importance to those resources
3. Identifying the vulnerabilities or potential threats to each resource
4. Mitigating or eliminating the most serious vulnerabilities for the most valuable resources
Automated Tools: Nessus, Nikto, Core impact, Retina, etc