As you can see, there is a significant difference between a vulnerability assessment and a penetration test. The vulnerability assessment's primary purpose is to determine whether vulnerabilities exist on the target device being assessed, while the penetration test is concerned with understanding whether those vulnerabilities can be used to gain access to that system and in turn gain access to sensitive organizational information.
The difference of the two types of test is clearly observed by reviewing their workflows. The vulnerability assessment ends at the scanning phase of the penetration test. Where you would begin to work with your technical team to remedy vulnerabilities in the vulnerability assessment, the penetration tester continues testing to compromise the target system, resulting in control of that system.
A penetration test is also about being able to show that information security vulnerabilities present in...
