Vulnerability Scanners: Result Accuracies

Vulnerability scanners are an important tool for any organization’s security arsenal. They can help identify potential security issues that could be exploited by attackers. But how accurate are the results? In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the validation process, vulnerability scanner results, and explore why vulnerability findings may be misleading.

What is validation?

In most simple terms, validation is identifying vulnerabilities clearly in a system. In the validation process, the goal is to have the most up-to-date knowledge about your network. We also try to determine the authenticity of identified vulnerabilities and define policy exclusions. Although our main goal is to identify weaknesses reliably, there is no such thing as a completely dependable vulnerability assessments report.

Vulnerability scanner responses

A scanner can produce four sorts of results. Let’s look at each of them.

True positive

True positive means that a vulnerability is successfully identified by the scanner. True indicates that the scanner is correct, and positive indicates that it discovered a weakness.

False positive

This happens when the scanner detects a weakness that is not present. False indicates that the scanner is inaccurate, while positive indicates that it discovered a weakness. A high number of false positives decreases trust in scanning findings. t may also become unpleasant since the work necessary to resolve a suspected issue can be time-consuming, especially on a big network.

True negative

True negative means that the scanner accurately decides that there is no weakness. True indicates that the scanner identified a risk, whereas negative states that there is no vulnerability detected. Contrary to popular belief, a true negative is beneficial to vulnerability scanners. It’s critical to recognize, however, that demonstrating a genuine negative is very difficult.

False negative

False-negative means that the scanner misses a weakness that truly exists. False indicates that the scanner is incorrect, whereas negative indicates that no vulnerabilities were discovered. This is worse than a false positive since it indicates that you are ignorant of weakness so it will not be mitigated which makes it exploitable. A false negative consequence may be due to a lack of technical competence to discover the issue. It is also possible that the vulnerability is too fresh and that no identification criteria for the analyzer are available.

Conclusion

As the page outlined, the findings of vulnerability scanning are not always accurate. Therefore, it is the security analyst’s responsibility to evaluate and interpret information prior to passing it on to others in the company. Only with vulnerabilities clearly recognized and the best courses of action defined you may prioritize solutions that have the least effect throughout the organization.

See also

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