How can you increase NSE's depth of version detection for more aggressive probing, and what is the corresponding option?

• A. --version-intensity 9
• B. --version-depth 9
• C. -V9
• D. --probe-version 9

Answer: (A)

Controlling how aggressively Nmap probes for service versions is done with the version-intensity switch. This flag scales how deep and thorough the version-detection probes go, with higher numbers running more checks and fingerprinting more fingerprints. The range is 0 to 9, and 9 is the most aggressive, giving you the deepest version discovery at the cost of longer scans and more network traffic.

This is why the best choice is the option that sets the intensity to 9: --version-intensity 9. It explicitly enables the deepest probing for version detection. Other prompts like version-depth, -V, or probe-version don’t adjust the depth of version probing in the same way, so they don’t achieve the same effect. Use it alongside your normal version detection (for example, in a regular scan with -sV) to push for the most thorough results.