Performing a Security Analysis on a Legacy System

A.

When assessing the vulnerabilities of a legacy system, the security analyst should perform a credentialed scan first.

A credentialed scan involves using valid login credentials to access the system and perform a scan. This allows the security analyst to gather more detailed information about the system's configuration and identify vulnerabilities that might not be visible during a passive or aggressive scan.

In contrast, a passive scan involves monitoring network traffic to gather information about the system, without actively sending traffic to the system. This can provide useful information about the system's configuration, but is not as thorough as a credentialed scan.

An aggressive scan involves sending large amounts of traffic to the system, which can help identify vulnerabilities that might not be detected during a passive scan. However, this approach can also cause disruptions to the system and potentially trigger security alerts.

An intrusive scan involves actively attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in the system. This is a very aggressive approach that can cause significant disruptions to the system and potentially compromise its security.

Therefore, the security analyst should first perform a credentialed scan to gather detailed information about the system's configuration and identify vulnerabilities, before considering more aggressive or intrusive scanning techniques.