Which option would you use to perform service version detection on a target?

• A. -sV
• B. -A
• C. -O
• D. -D

Answer: (A)

To identify what services are running and their versions, you use the flag that enables version probing and fingerprinting. This option tells Nmap to probe open ports and compare responses against a large database to determine the service name and its version. It provides a focused, precise result about what each service is and which version it’s using.

The broader, all-in-one option would also perform version detection, but it does more than just that—it combines OS detection and script scanning as well, which can add noise and extra checks when you only need the service versions. OS detection is for identifying the target system, and decoy scanning is meant to hide your scans by spoofing sources; neither is about identifying service versions.

So, for specifically performing service version detection on a target, the best choice is the flag that enables only that capability and returns the version information for the detected services.