312-50V11 · Question #158
A penetration tester is conducting a port scan on a specific host. The tester found several ports opened that were confusing in concluding the Operating System (OS) version installed. Considering…
The correct answer is B. The host is likely a printer. The presence of ports 515 (LPD), 631 (IPP), and 9100 (JetDirect/raw printing) alongside HTTP and FTP strongly identifies this host as a networked printer or multifunction device.
Question
A penetration tester is conducting a port scan on a specific host. The tester found several ports opened that were confusing in concluding the Operating System (OS) version installed. Considering the NMAP result below, which of the following is likely to be installed on the target machine by the OS? Starting NMAP 5.21 at 2011-03-15 11:06 NMAP scan report for 172.16.40.65 Host is up (1.00s latency). Not shown: 993 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE 21/tcp open ftp 23/tcp open telnet 80/tcp open http 139/tcp open netbios-ssn 515/tcp open 631/tcp open ipp 9100/tcp open MAC Address: 00:00:48:0D:EE:89
Options
- AThe host is likely a Linux machine.
- BThe host is likely a printer.
- CThe host is likely a router.
- DThe host is likely a Windows machine.
How the community answered
(29 responses)- A7% (2)
- B59% (17)
- C24% (7)
- D10% (3)
Why each option
The presence of ports 515 (LPD), 631 (IPP), and 9100 (JetDirect/raw printing) alongside HTTP and FTP strongly identifies this host as a networked printer or multifunction device.
A Linux server would typically expose port 22 (SSH) and would not have three concurrent dedicated printing service ports (515, 631, 9100) open by default.
Port 515 (Line Printer Daemon), port 631 (Internet Printing Protocol), and port 9100 (raw/JetDirect printing) are all dedicated network printing protocol ports. The combination of all three printing-specific ports alongside port 80 (HTTP web management interface) and port 21 (FTP for file transfer to the device) is the characteristic fingerprint of a networked printer or multifunction printer, not a general-purpose computer. No other device class typically opens this specific cluster of printing service ports simultaneously.
A router would commonly expose management ports such as 22 (SSH), 23 (Telnet), or 161 (SNMP) for administration, not a cluster of printing-protocol-specific ports.
A Windows machine would characteristically show ports such as 135 (RPC), 445 (SMB/CIFS), or 3389 (RDP), none of which appear in this scan output.
Concept tested: Nmap port scanning and device fingerprinting via open ports
Source: https://nmap.org/book/port-scanning.html
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