What Is Vulnerability Scanning? Benefits, Challenges and Essential Tool Features

Vulnerability scanning automates the discovery of known flaws and, therefore, is vital to maintaining a forward-looking security posture. Whether integrated directly into your CI/CD pipeline or delivered as a fully managed service, it allows organizations to identify threats before they reach production, prioritize response and reduce exposure. Thoughtfully selecting the right scanner technology ensures your program can scale and adapt safely, at your speed. 

What is vulnerability scanning?

Vulnerability scanning is the automated process of probing systems, applications and infrastructure components to uncover known security flaws. Examples of security flaws include outdated software, insecure configurations or exposed APIs. 

By leveraging databases like the National Vulnerability Database, scanning tools identify known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures and misconfigurations across various layers. For example, in containerized environments, tools like SUSE Security can scan running containers, host nodes and the orchestration platform for vulnerabilities

What are security vulnerabilities?

Security vulnerabilities are flaws, bugs or misconfigurations that allow unauthorized access or unintended actions. In cloud native systems, these vulnerabilities can arise across multiple layers. Application code may harbor unpatched flaws, container images might include insecure components and orchestration tools like Kubernetes can be misconfigured to allow excessive permissions. Even infrastructure settings — like open ports or publicly accessible storage — can introduce risk. 

Vulnerability scanning vs penetration testing vs security scanning

The terms vulnerability scanning, penetration testing and security scanning may sound interchangeable. Each concept is distinct in function, however, especially in the context of a layered defense strategy.

What is the difference between vulnerability scanning and penetration testing?

Penetration testing involves simulating attacks in a controlled manner to identify unknown vulnerabilities or test defenses. Through the simulation, skilled professionals manually attempt to exploit your systems in the same manner as a real attacker.

Vulnerability scanning, in contrast, is an automated process that detects known vulnerabilities across a wide range of assets. Instead of exploiting flaws in your systems, it identifies and catalogs them for remediation. For example, a vulnerability scan might detect that a particular container image includes a library with a high-severity CVE. The result is a regular, scalable view of your exposure across environments.

What is the difference between vulnerability scanning and security scanning?

Security scanning is a comprehensive term for examining multiple risk dimensions. Security scanning can involve checking for configuration drift, scanning for hardcoded secrets in repositories, performing compliance audits, detecting policy violations and more. For example, a security scan might catch an exposed SSH key in a public code repository or discover that a service has been configured in a way that makes it accessible to the broader internet.

Vulnerability scanning is a focused subset of security scanning. It concentrates specifically on software flaws and known weaknesses.

What is the importance of vulnerability scanning?

Vulnerability scanning is a cornerstone of modern cybersecurity. Without it, teams risk deploying vulnerable code, introducing insecure configurations or failing audits.

Some of the key outcomes of vulnerability scanning include:

• Proactive CVE mitigation and early risk detection: Continuous scanning identifies known vulnerabilities before they reach production, which helps you fix issues before threats can grow.
• Audit-ready compliance evidence: Automated scanning reports provide the documentation auditors require, minimizing the last-minute scramble to collect evidence.
• Faster, safer release cycles: When integrated with CI/CD pipelines or policy engines, scanning tools can catch vulnerabilities before deployment. This reduces the likelihood of vulnerability-related rollbacks.
• Automated policy enforcement: Integration with policy-as-code engines ensures that security guardrails are enforced consistently across environments and teams.

How does vulnerability scanning work?

While implementations vary, most vulnerability scanning processes follow five key steps:

1. Asset discovery and inventory: The process begins with identifying all assets and workloads that need protection. Start by automatically detecting container images, Kubernetes clusters, virtual machines, infrastructure-as-code repositories and other components across environments.
2. Asset classification and prioritization: Once you have identified the assets, use criteria such as business criticality, compliance requirements and deployment environment to tag the assets. These classifications will help determine which scans to run, with what frequency and with what level of scrutiny.
3. Execution of targeted scans: The system leverages your metadata to execute appropriate scans for each asset. For instance, a container image might undergo an authenticated scan to check for known vulnerabilities in its packages. Separately, a network scan would look for open ports and outdated protocols in a cloud subnet. 
4. Analysis and triage of scan results: Post-scan, the system aggregates and de-duplicates the results. It evaluates each issue for severity and potential impact, often using CVSS scores and runtime context. It then delivers findings —including detected vulnerabilities that could pose real business risk — to the appropriate team or through a managed service dashboard.
5. Remediation and verification: Finally, security and DevOps teams patch software, reconfigure permissions or update infrastructure templates. An automated re-scan will verify the fix and close the loop by feeding results back into CI/CD workflows or change management systems.

Common types of Vulnerability Scanning

Vulnerability scanning isn’t one-size-fits-all. The scanning method depends on the focus of the assessment and the timing of the scan. 

Authenticated scans use system credentials to probe deeper into assets. They uncover issues like outdated libraries or exposed services that might otherwise be missed. Authenticated scans are especially important in environments where accuracy and depth matter.

Network-level scans focus on identifying externally visible risks such as open ports or unpatched services. These scans help you understand exposure across subnets and clusters. 

In parallel, container and image scans dig into the building blocks of cloud native applications, surfacing known CVEs in base images or dependencies introduced during development. For example, when it comes to Docker security, these scans can reveal risky default configurations or unnecessary root privileges. 

Meanwhile, IaC scanning evaluates the blueprints behind cloud native deployments — like Helm charts or Terraform scripts. These scans help security teams catch misconfigurations before provisioning. 

Which vulnerabilities are found with scanning?

Scanners can detect a broad spectrum of issues, from critical CVEs to subtle misconfigurations. They can flag a widely known vulnerability like Log4Shell in a Java library, highlight an exposed API key left in a Kubernetes YAML file, and detect that a database lacks encryption-at-rest controls. These findings help teams proactively resolve vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

SUSE Security takes unified scanning even further. In addition to surfacing traditional vulnerabilities, it identifies policy violations that align with the OWASP Kubernetes Top 10. Insights appear alongside CVE data in a single scan, making it easier for you to harden systems without juggling multiple tools.

These findings are especially powerful when paired with real-world context. In SUSE’s managed offerings, vulnerability data is enriched with runtime insights that help teams distinguish between theoretical risks and immediate threats. This contextual prioritization empowers even smarter, faster decisions.

Challenges to successful vulnerability scans

Despite its advantages, vulnerability scanning can sometimes create friction — especially for teams with limited resources or complex environments. Its benefits may vary across contexts. The following challenges illustrate some of the difficulties that scanning programs may cause or reveal in an organization.

• Alert fatigue: High volumes of alerts, especially for low-severity issues, can distract teams from other, more meaningful priorities.
• False positives: Incorrect results can lead to unnecessary fixes, wasting time and other resources.
• Credential management: Deep scanning often requires secure access credentials, which can be difficult to manage.
• Tool sprawl: Different teams might use multiple scanners for different environments, making it harder to consolidate and quickly act on findings.
• Skills gaps: Interpreting scan results often requires specialized security knowledge. Some teams may struggle to triage findings, understand exploitability or implement the right remediation.
• Vendor lock-in: Proprietary tools may limit export formats or require closed ecosystems, which decreases flexibility.
• Multi-cluster complexity: Large-scale Kubernetes deployments introduce scale and visibility issues that make scanning more difficult.

For teams navigating fragmented tools, limited capacity or complex infrastructure, SUSE Rancher Prime offers a streamlined approach to vulnerability management. In addition to unifying scanning efforts across environments, the platform supports policy control and compliance.  

Vulnerability scanning best practices

For teams ready to embrace the complexities of scanning, there are proven strategies to maximize impact. By aligning tools and workflows around the following best practices, organizations can successfully move from reactive cleanup to proactive resilience.

• Use contextual prioritization: Don’t treat all vulnerabilities equally. Focus on those with known exploits or those that impact business-critical systems, ideally with scanners that factor in runtime context.
• Shift left: Catch issues early by integrating scans into development workflows. This approach can include scanning container images at build time or scanning IaC templates during commit.
• Automate enforcement: Define and apply remediation rules using policy-as-code frameworks to ensure consistent, repeatable safeguards. Tools like Kubewarden can help enable codification of security policies and then apply them dynamically at the Kubernetes admission controller level. 
• Maintain regular cadence: In addition to conducting scans in response to events, conduct scans daily or weekly. This frequency will keep you aware of newly discovered CVEs and prevent security drift.

Regardless of the specific best practices that you adopt, keep in mind that vulnerability scanning can be a meaningful component of a zero trust approach — where no device, workload or user is trusted by default. It also promotes stronger container security, particularly in container-first environments where short-lived workloads must be continuously validated.

What to look for in vulnerability scanning tools

To successfully implement best practices, you must have the right tools. From enforcing policies to reducing noise and prioritizing fixes, the capabilities of your scanner will affect the way your program runs. Look for:

• Coverage: Comprehensive tools assess containers, infrastructure-as-code templates, virtual machines and registries.
• Contextualization: Effective scanners offer runtime context and noise reduction features to help prioritize real threats.
• Integration: Tools that connect easily to version control systems, CI/CD platforms and ticketing workflows will enable earlier detection of vulnerabilities. Integration also enables automated assignment and tracking of remediation tasks, ensuring that security issues are not just discovered but resolved.
• Ease of use: A good user interface and support for role-based views will help ensure that both security and development teams can achieve the greatest benefit.
• Deployment flexibility: Flexibility and interoperability are essential to future-proofing your investment. Choose tools that support open formats, APIs and the ability to run on-premises or in the cloud. 

Vulnerability scanning with SUSE

Vulnerabilities often emerge in layers — from code to infrastructure — and can escalate into major exploits, especially in the fast-moving world of Kubernetes security. Approached as a modular service, vulnerability scanning can programmatically detect software weaknesses, misconfigurations and compliance risks in an organizationally-specific manner.

Through integrations with policy-as-code frameworks, CI/CD pipelines and dashboards that emphasize actionable prioritization, SUSE supports the full lifecycle of vulnerability scanning. Because SUSE Security and SUSE Rancher Prime are built on open source foundations, they integrate easily with the DevOps tools and processes many organizations already use. 

The tiered nature of SUSE’s services allows you to choose between self-managed plugins, pre-built integrations or fully managed solutions. These options can scale with team maturity and can extend to support broader strategies like zero trust security and container runtime security. Even fully managed tiers maintain customer visibility, support policy customization and align with operational workflows — ensuring that control and compliance remain intact.

Ready to transform security from a bottleneck into a built-in service? Learn how SUSE can help secure your Kubernetes ecosystem and optimize cloud native performance.

Vulnerability scanning FAQs

How often should you perform vulnerability scanning?

As a starting point, you should perform vulnerability scanning automatically during every build. In addition, most companies run scans daily or weekly in production environments in order to catch emerging risks. 

Do you have to use a vulnerability scanning tool?

No team has to use a vulnerability scanning tool. Without such a vulnerability scanning tool, however, it can be difficult or impossible to effectively manage vulnerabilities across containers, microservices and open-source components. 

Is vulnerability scanning the same as antivirus software?

Not quite. Vulnerability scanning and antivirus software operate on different layers. Antivirus software scans for malicious files or behaviors on a running system. Vulnerability scanning identifies known weaknesses in code, images or infrastructure before anything goes live. 

How does vulnerability scanning affect compliance regulations?

Vulnerability scanning plays a central role in demonstrating compliance with regulations. Frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2 and FedRAMP typically require organizations to have a documented, repeatable process for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities. Some scanning tools can generate standards-aligned reports, supporting your audit processes.