Ethical Hacking Vulnerability Assessments and Threat Modeling

Vulnerability scanning is typically something done by the ethical hacker or the blue team to assess where they are vulnerable and what they have to protect. That does not mean attackers, red teams, and penetration testers do not use them. However, they may just use them on a smaller and more targeted scale.

In this chapter, we will discuss vulnerability analysis, which is the final part of the reconnaissance and scanning phase, and at this juncture, systems, ports, and even services have been identified. We will assess the specific port or service to see what it is vulnerable to. Specifically, we will discuss vulnerability assessments, what role they play in ethical hacking, and how the information derived from the assessment funnels into threat modeling.

We will cover the following main topics in this chapter:

• Vulnerability assessment concepts
• Vulnerability assessment life cycle
• Vulnerability scanning...