What is the main purpose of a vulnerability scanner?

• A. To maintain hardware inventory
• B. To identify security weaknesses in a system or network
• C. To monitor user activity
• D. To log network traffic

Answer: (B)

A vulnerability scanner’s main purpose is to automatically identify security weaknesses in a system or network by scanning hosts, services, and applications against databases of known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and missing patches. This produces a report that helps prioritize remediation based on severity, so you can reduce risk before attackers exploit flaws. It isn’t about maintaining hardware inventory (asset management), monitoring user activity (user behavior auditing), or logging network traffic (traffic capture or IDS/IPS functions).