What is the difference between vulnerability and compliance scanning?

In enterprise cybersecurity, understanding the purpose and scope of different scanning practices is crucial. Two essential types of assessments are compliance scans and vulnerability scans. Though they’re often used together, they serve distinct purposes and provide different insights. This article outlines the key differences, explores how each scan works, and explains where they fit into your security and compliance strategy.

What is compliance scanning?

Compliance scanning focuses on verifying whether your systems, applications, and infrastructure meet specific regulatory or industry requirements. These scans ensure that configurations, access controls, encryption methods, and other technical elements align with mandated standards.

Key components of compliance scans

Configuration checks

Validate that system settings conform to compliance baselines. This includes verifying operating system hardening, firewall rules, network segmentation, and service configurations. Improper settings can lead to security gaps or non-compliance with technical requirements.

Access controls

Ensure appropriate user permissions, identity verification, and session policies. This involves enforcing the principle of least privilege, enabling multi-factor authentication, and ensuring that session timeouts and credential policies align with regulatory expectations.

Audit trails

Confirm logging and monitoring are in place and meet requirements. Logs must capture relevant events such as login attempts, configuration changes, and access to sensitive data. Audit trails should also be protected from tampering and retained per compliance retention policies.

Encryption and data handling

Verify that sensitive data is protected in storage and transit. This includes confirming the use of strong, up-to-date encryption protocols (e.g., TLS 1.2+), secure key management practices, and ensuring sensitive data is not exposed in logs or unsecured storage.

Policy enforcement

Confirm the presence and enforcement of security policies related to the standard being audited. Policies must be documented, communicated to relevant personnel, and technically enforced through automated mechanisms and controls that are verifiable during audits.

Benefits of compliance scans

• Demonstrate alignment with regulatory frameworks.
• Reduce the risk of non-compliance fines and reputational damage.
• Provide clear documentation for audit readiness.
• Help standardize security practices across teams and departments.

Examples of compliance standards in IT

SOC 2

SOC 2 applies to technology and SaaS companies that handle customer data. Compliance scans focus on controls related to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

PCI DSS

For organizations that process credit card payments, PCI DSS requires regular compliance scans to validate encryption, access control, logging, and network segmentation.

HIPAA

In the healthcare sector, HIPAA mandates technical safeguards for patient data. Compliance scanning checks for proper handling of electronic protected health information (ePHI), including encryption, access logs, and secure communication.

GDPR

GDPR compliance scanning ensures that data collection, storage, and sharing processes respect user privacy rights and are protected against unauthorized access.

FedRAMP

FedRAMP applies to cloud service providers working with the U.S. government. Compliance scans focus on stringent security controls, incident response procedures, and data residency requirements.

Vulnerability scans

While compliance scans focus on policy adherence, vulnerability scans are concerned with identifying actual weaknesses in your systems that attackers can exploit. They detect outdated software, misconfigurations, missing patches, and exposed services.

Tools and techniques

Vulnerability scans typically use automated tools such as network scanners, dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools, and cloud security scanners. In general, these tools probe networks, applications, and systems for known vulnerabilities and provide risk-ranked results.

Benefits of vulnerability scans

• Identify exploitable flaws before attackers do.
• Verify the effectiveness of other security measures.
• Enable faster remediation by development and IT teams.
• Reduce risk exposure in production environments.
• Provide continuous insights when integrated into CI/CD pipelines.

Key differences between vulnerability and compliance scans

	Vulnerability scanning	Compliance scanning
Primary goal	Identify exploitable security flaws	Verify adherence to regulatory standards
Focus area	Security posture of assets	Configuration, policy, and audit control checks
Sample tools used	Invicti, Acunetix, Burp Suite, ZAP, Qualys	Nessus, Tenable.sc, OpenSCAP, cloud audit tools
Frequency	Periodic, regular (weekly/monthly), or continuous	Typically periodic (quarterly/annually), though some frameworks require continuous
Output	List of vulnerabilities	Pass/fail results for specific controls
Regulatory relevance	Indirect (can support compliance)	Direct (mapped to specific standards)
Target audience	Security and IT teams	Compliance officers, auditors, security teams

The role of DAST in compliance scanning

While compliance scans are designed to verify whether your systems meet the technical requirements of specific frameworks, they don’t always reflect real-world risk. That’s where DAST plays a crucial supporting role. By simulating attacks against running applications, scanning with DAST provides the runtime validation needed to ensure that compliance isn’t just a checkbox exercise but a meaningful measure of security posture.

Bridging the gap between policy and practice

Compliance frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2 often require organizations to test for vulnerabilities in web applications and APIs. However, traditional compliance scans tend to focus on configuration validation, i.e. ensuring systems are set up in accordance with best practices. They typically do not detect whether those systems can be exploited through business logic flaws, broken access controls, or other runtime vulnerabilities.

DAST fills that gap by actively probing applications as a real attacker would. It identifies and validates exploitable issues in authentication flows, session handling, input validation, and more—areas that static configuration scans may overlook entirely.

Proof of control effectiveness

DAST not only finds vulnerabilities but also helps prove that security controls are working as intended. For example, if a compliance framework requires proper access controls and input sanitization, a DAST solution can demonstrate whether these protections actually hold up during a simulated attack. This provides more defensible evidence during audits and supports continuous compliance initiatives.

Continuous validation for dynamic environments

Modern applications are constantly evolving. Frequent releases, third-party integrations, and infrastructure-as-code mean your environment may change daily. Unlike periodic compliance scans, DAST can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines and run continuously. This allows organizations to validate compliance-related controls at the pace of development and quickly catch regressions before they become audit findings.

Mapping DAST results to compliance frameworks

Advanced DAST-first tools like Invicti go a step further by aligning scan results with specific compliance standards. Vulnerabilities are mapped to PCI DSS, OWASP Top 10, HIPAA technical safeguards, and others, helping organizations translate technical findings into audit-ready evidence. This reduces manual effort and supports faster reporting during assessments.

Conclusion

To be clear, both types of scans are essential for any organization that wants to be both formally compliant and practically secure. Compliance scans help prove that you’re following the rules. Vulnerability scans help ensure you’re secure—whether you’re being audited or not.

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