After conducting a vulnerability scan, a systems administrator notices that one of the identified vulnerabilities is not present on the systems that were scanned. Which of the following describes this

The correct answer is A. False positive. A false positive occurs when a vulnerability scan identifies a vulnerability that is not actually present on the systems that were scanned. This means that the scan has incorrectly flagged a system as vulnerable. False positive: Incorrectly identifies a vulnerability that does no

Submitted by skyler.x· Mar 6, 2026Threats, vulnerabilities, and mitigations

Question

After conducting a vulnerability scan, a systems administrator notices that one of the identified vulnerabilities is not present on the systems that were scanned. Which of the following describes this example?

Options

AFalse positive
BFalse negative
CTrue positive
DTrue negative

How the community answered

(39 responses)

A
90% (35)
B
3% (1)
C
5% (2)
D
3% (1)

Explanation

A false positive occurs when a vulnerability scan identifies a vulnerability that is not actually present on the systems that were scanned. This means that the scan has incorrectly flagged a system as vulnerable. False positive: Incorrectly identifies a vulnerability that does not exist on the scanned systems. False negative: Fails to identify an existing vulnerability on the system. True positive: Correctly identifies an existing vulnerability. True negative: Correctly identifies that there is no vulnerability.

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