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A penetration tester is performing active reconnaissance on a target network. The tester wants to identify all live hosts in the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet and determine which ones have port 80 open. Which technique is most efficient for this task?

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A penetration tester is performing active reconnaissance on a target network. The tester wants to identify all live hosts in the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet and determine which ones have port 80 open. Which technique is most efficient for this task?

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Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

A

Distractor review

Perform a full TCP connect scan on all 65535 ports for each IP address.

This is extremely inefficient as it scans all ports on every IP, including ones that are not even alive, wasting time and bandwidth.

B

Best answer

Use a ping sweep to identify live hosts, then run a SYN scan on port 80 for those hosts.

A ping sweep quickly finds responsive IPs, and then a SYN scan on only those hosts for the single port is highly efficient.

C

Distractor review

Run a SYN scan on port 80 for every IP in the subnet without ping probing.

This scans all 256 IPs even if many are offline, generating unnecessary traffic. It is less efficient than first determining which hosts are alive.

D

Distractor review

Use ARP requests to map the subnet and then check for port 80 on each host.

ARP requests work only on the local subnet and do not reliably determine if a host is alive for remote scanning; also, they cannot traverse routers.

Common exam trap

Common exam trap: usable hosts are not the same as total addresses

Subnetting questions often tempt you into counting all addresses. In normal IPv4 subnets, the network and broadcast addresses are not usable host addresses.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

Subnetting questions test whether you can identify the network, broadcast address, usable range, mask and correct subnet. Slow down enough to calculate the block size correctly.

KKey Concepts to Remember

  • CIDR notation defines the prefix length.
  • Block size helps identify subnet boundaries.
  • Network and broadcast addresses are not usable hosts in normal IPv4 subnets.
  • The required host count determines the smallest suitable subnet.

TExam Day Tips

  • Write the block size before choosing the subnet.
  • Check whether the question asks for hosts, subnets or a specific address range.
  • Do not confuse /24, /25, /26 and /27 host counts.

Related practice questions

Related PT0-002 practice-question pages

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More questions from this exam

Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.

Question 1

A penetration tester is writing the executive summary for a report. The client's CEO needs to understand the business impact of a critical SQL injection vulnerability. Which of the following should the tester include?

Question 2

A penetration tester has gained a low-privileged shell on a Linux server. During enumeration, the tester discovers a binary with the SUID bit set that belongs to root and is known to have a buffer overflow vulnerability. What is the MOST effective next step to escalate privileges?

Question 3

A penetration tester is performing passive reconnaissance against a target domain. Which of the following resources can be used to gather information about the target without directly sending packets to the target's network? (Select two.) (Choose 2.)

Question 4

A penetration tester has obtained a TGT from a domain controller by cracking the krbtgt hash. Which attack can the tester now perform to gain persistent administrative access to any resource in the domain?

Question 5

A penetration tester is writing the executive summary for the final report. The CEO needs to understand the overall risk level and the business impact of the findings. Which of the following should be included in the executive summary?

Question 6

A penetration tester is writing the executive summary of a penetration test report. Which of the following elements is MOST important to include for a non-technical audience?

FAQ

Questions learners often ask

What does this PT0-002 question test?

CIDR notation defines the prefix length.

What is the correct answer to this question?

The correct answer is: Use a ping sweep to identify live hosts, then run a SYN scan on port 80 for those hosts. — Efficiency is achieved by first discovering live hosts to reduce the number of targets, then scanning only those hosts for the specific open port. A ping sweep quickly identifies responsive hosts, followed by a targeted SYN scan on port 80. This minimizes network traffic and time compared to scanning all IPs in the subnet for a single port.

What should I do if I get this PT0-002 question wrong?

Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.

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