Techno Security Inc. recently hired John as a penetration tester. He was tasked with identifying open ports in the target network and determining whether the ports are online and any firewall rule…

The `-pp` option is not a standard Nmap ping scan type for TCP SYN ping scans.

The `-PO` option performs an IP protocol ping, which sends IP packets with different protocol numbers, not a TCP SYN ping.

The `nmap -sn -PS <target IP address>` command explicitly performs a TCP SYN ping scan, sending SYN packets to common ports. This method helps Nmap determine if hosts are online and can also provide insights into firewall rules by observing SYN/ACK responses or lack thereof, with `-sn` disabling full port scanning for just host discovery.

The `-PA` option performs a TCP ACK ping scan, which sends ACK packets, distinct from a TCP SYN ping scan.