210-250 · Question #50
Which option is a purpose of port scanning?
The correct answer is C. Identify which ports and services are open on the target host. Port scanning is a reconnaissance technique used to discover which ports and services are active and listening on a target host.
Question
Which option is a purpose of port scanning?
Options
- AIdentify the Internet Protocol of the target system.
- BDetermine if the network is up or down
- CIdentify which ports and services are open on the target host.
- DIdentify legitimate users of a system.
How the community answered
(59 responses)- A8% (5)
- B2% (1)
- C86% (51)
- D3% (2)
Why each option
Port scanning is a reconnaissance technique used to discover which ports and services are active and listening on a target host.
Identifying the IP address of a target is done through DNS resolution or ICMP echo (ping), not port scanning.
Determining if a network or host is up is the function of ICMP ping sweeps or host discovery, not port scanning.
Port scanning sends probes to a range of ports on a target host and analyzes the responses to determine which ports are open, closed, or filtered. This reveals which services (e.g., HTTP on 80, SSH on 22) are running, giving an attacker or auditor a map of the attack surface. Tools like Nmap are the standard example of this technique.
Identifying legitimate users is a separate activity called user enumeration, which may exploit specific services found after port scanning but is not the purpose of scanning itself.
Concept tested: Port scanning reconnaissance and service discovery
Source: https://nmap.org/book/man.html
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