If you work in IT, you understand the importance of keeping your networks secure and your data protected. There are a variety of tests that IT departments should run regularly to monitor the health of their systems, and take timely action if vulnerabilities or security gaps are detected.

In this guide, our IT security experts explain three important security scans to run on your systems.

Vulnerability scans

Vulnerability scans comprehensively assess your network and identify holes that hackers could exploit. These vulnerabilities usually result from operating systems, software, or firmware that have not been updated recently and may be missing the latest security patches.

During a vulnerability scan, a software will crawl your systems and generate a report with all vulnerabilities. WIth that report, you can make more informed decisions about what to upgrade and when–for example, migrating to Windows 11 to mitigate the security risk of out-of-date Windows 10.

Departments should run vulnerability scans at least once or twice a year. As software or operating systems reach end of support or are not upgraded, your systems can become increasingly susceptible to hacking or data loss. Vulnerability scans are required by some industries and are a key component of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance. At STI, we offer vulnerability scan services annually.

Penetration tests

A penetration test determines how secure your system and network are, and whether there are any weak points that are susceptible to hacking. A penetration scan assesses endpoints on the user’s systems, on servers, or on the network itself. The penetration scan results in a report grading each entry point on how likely it is that a hacker could exploit it.

A penetration test scans everything coming into the network (external IP addresses) as well as everything within the network (internal IP addresses). Departments should run penetration tests at least once per year to assess the security of their network.

STI offers penetration test services twice a year, which covers 1,000 internal IP addresses and 10 external IP addresses. If more IP addresses are needed, they can be added for a fee.

Dark web scans

The third security scan IT departments should conduct on a regular basis is dark web scans. These tests check whether information about a domain, or any email addresses and passwords associated with that domain, is for sale on the dark web. The scan takes only a few hours to run, and generates a report of how many times each email address was found.

If any of your information is found on the dark web, you should ensure that everyone in your organization changes their password and consider bolstering your password and security policies. Then, quickly run a penetration test and vulnerability scan to identify any areas that hackers may exploit using the information they purchased.

At STI, we offer dark web scan services quarterly, covering one domain and 25 email addresses. Again, if more email addresses need to be scanned, they can be added for a fee.

Should you run security scans yourself or partner with an expert?

Some IT departments handle their security scans in house, or hire a “white hat hacker” to identify their system’s vulnerabilities. Both solutions can be effective. However, when you partner with IT experts like STI, you’ll receive a more comprehensive and automated solution, along with a trusted consultant to help you solve any problems the scans identify.

Want to learn more?

For more information about our security support solutions, contact our experts.