An administrator is concerned that a company’s web server has not been patched. Which of the following would
be the BEST assessment for the administrator to perform?

A.
Vulnerability scan

B.
Risk assessment

C.
Virus scan

D.
Network sniffer

Explanation:
A vulnerability scan is the process of scanning the network and/or I.T. infrastructure for threats and
vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities include computer systems that do not have the latest security patches installed.
The threats and vulnerabilities are then evaluated in a risk assessment and the necessary actions taken to
resolve and vulnerabilities.
A vulnerability scan is the automated process of proactively identifying security vulnerabilities of computing
systems in a network in order to determine if and where a system can be exploited and/or threatened. While
public servers are important for communication and data transfer over the Internet, they open the door to
potential security breaches by threat agents, such as malicious hackers.
Vulnerability scanning employs software that seeks out security flaws based on a database of known flaws,
testing systems for the occurrence of these flaws and generating a report of the findings that an individual or anenterprise can use to tighten the network’s security.
Vulnerability scanning typically refers to the scanning of systems that are connected to the Internet but can also
refer to system audits on internal networks that are not connected to the Internet in order to assess the threat of
rogue software or malicious employees in an enterprise.