Which option controls port scanning in Nmap?

• A. -sV
• B. -O
• C. -T
• D. -p

Answer: (D)

The ability to decide which ports Nmap probes is what this tests, and that is controlled by the port specification option. Using -p lets you specify exact ports or ranges to scan—for example, -p 80,443 scans only those ports, -p 1-1000 scans the first thousand ports, and -p- scans all ports (1-65535). By default, Nmap uses a standard set of ports, so -p changes the scope of the port scan.

The other switches change different aspects of the scan rather than which ports are examined: -sV enables service/version detection on open ports, -O attempts to determine the host OS, and -T adjusts timing and scan speed.