Vulnerability scans are dependent on ________ in order to function.

While privileged access can enhance the depth of a vulnerability scan (credentialed scans), scans can still function without it (uncredentialed scans), though with less comprehensive results.

Vulnerability signatures, also known as vulnerability definitions or plugins, are databases of known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and attack patterns that a vulnerability scanner uses to compare against the target system's characteristics. These signatures allow the scanner to accurately identify potential security weaknesses by matching discovered attributes to known threats.

Malware libraries are primarily used by antivirus software to detect malicious code, not by vulnerability scanners to identify system weaknesses.

Forensic analysis is performed *after* an incident to understand what happened, not as a dependency for a proactive vulnerability scan.