At Heretek, we’ve reviewed networks where the patch had been applied — yet attackers still found a way in. One client, for example, had updated all production servers after a zero-day alert. But the breach came through a staging environment that ran an older version. It wasn’t on their inventory. Nobody had tested it. It was technically patched — just not the one that mattered.

Security posture isn’t determined by what’s visible in the dashboard. It’s decided by the things you don’t know are there.

Vulnerability scanners do an important job — but they aren’t oracles. They only report on what they’re shown. A forgotten API on a dev box, a misconfigured firewall rule, or an unmonitored VPN appliance can all stay under the radar. And attackers? They don’t wait for scan results. They explore, probe, test context. A low-severity issue on paper can be the perfect entry point in the real world.

We’ve seen cases where a scanner reported “nothing critical,” while a manual assessment revealed credential reuse paths, internal admin panels, and outdated firmware in corner-case infrastructure. In each case, those gaps were exploitable — and invisible to automation alone.

Vulnerability assessments aren’t just about chasing CVEs. They’re about building a real-world picture of your environment. What’s exposed? What’s missed in documentation? What’s silently drifted from best practice over time?

Patching is part of the answer. But the bigger question is: Are you sure you know what needs patching?

When we carry out a vulnerability assessment, we start by mapping the landscape — not just what’s live, but what’s overlooked. We look at how different components connect, where credentials might be misused, where asset drift has occurred, and how an attacker might string things together.

It’s not just a long report with risk ratings. It’s a tailored roadmap of how your organisation actually looks from the outside in — and inside out.

By the time your team hits “Install Updates,” an attacker might already have footholds. This is especially true when zero-days come with working exploit code out of the gate, which is increasingly common.

Visibility has to move faster than the threat. And that’s what vulnerability assessments are for — finding the things the patch can’t fix.

Heretek’s Vulnerability Assessment service is designed to reveal what patching leaves behind — the forgotten server, the exposed service, the misconfigured endpoint. We work with your team to bring those blind spots into focus.

Schedule Your Vulnerability Assessment and take control before the next zero-day takes it for you.