Vulnerability scanning evaluates an organization's systems and network to identify vulnerabilities such as missing patches, unnecessary services, weak authentication, and weak encryption. The document discusses using the Advanced IP Scanner tool to perform a network scan on a target Windows Server 2008 system from a Windows 8 attacker system to check for live systems, open ports, and gather information about computers on the local network. It provides instructions on launching Advanced IP Scanner, entering an IP address range to scan, and viewing the scan results.