312-50V9 · Question #494
A hacker is attempting to see which ports have been left open on a network. Which NMAP switch would the hacker use?
The correct answer is A. -sO. The Nmap -sO switch performs an IP protocol scan to determine which IP protocols are open and active on a target host.
Question
A hacker is attempting to see which ports have been left open on a network. Which NMAP switch would the hacker use?
Options
- A-sO
- B-sP
- C-sS
- D-sU
How the community answered
(58 responses)- A88% (51)
- B2% (1)
- C3% (2)
- D7% (4)
Why each option
The Nmap -sO switch performs an IP protocol scan to determine which IP protocols are open and active on a target host.
The -sO flag in Nmap triggers an IP Protocol Scan, which iterates through IP protocol numbers to identify which protocols such as TCP, UDP, ICMP, and IGMP are supported and active on the target. It sends raw IP packets with varying protocol numbers and analyzes responses to determine which protocols are open. This is used to map the IP-level attack surface of a target system.
-sP (deprecated in favor of -sn) performs a ping scan to discover live hosts on a network, not to enumerate open ports or protocols.
-sS performs a TCP SYN half-open stealth scan against TCP ports and does not scan for IP-level protocol availability.
-sU performs a UDP port scan to discover open UDP services, not IP protocol availability.
Concept tested: Nmap IP protocol scan switch identification
Source: https://nmap.org/book/scan-methods-ip-protocol-scan.html
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