I get very often asked about these two concepts and I noticed that there is a lot of unclarity around these topics. At the end, I will tell you my own opinion and give you some advices.   Vulnerability scan Also known as Vulnerability Assessment, looks for known vulnerabilities in your systems and reports potential exposures. Vulnerability assessments are performed by using an off-the-shelf software package, such as Nessus or OpenVas to scan an IP address or range of IP addresses for known vulnerabilities. For example, the software has signatures for the Heartbleed bug or missing Apache web server patches and will alert if found. The software then produces a report that lists out found vulnerabilities and (depending on the software and options selected) will give an indication of the severity of the vulnerability and basic remediation steps. It’s important to keep in mind that these scanners use a list of known vulnerabilities, meaning they are already known to the security community, hackers and the software vendors. There are vulnerabilities that are unknown to the public at large and these scanners will not find them.   Penetration test (aka “pentest”) Designed to actually exploit weaknesses in the architecture of your…