Which lab focuses on NMAP usage including OS detection and service version detection?

• A. Lab 2.1 - Experimenting with NMAP
• B. Lab 1.3 Overview
• C. Lab 2.3 Scapy/Tcpdump
• D. Lab 2.2 NMAP -O -sV

Answer: (D)

Understanding how NMAP can reveal both an operating system and the services running on a machine is essential for accurate network mapping. OS detection fingerprints a target by sending specific probes and analyzing responses to infer the underlying operating system. This capability is enabled in NMAP by the OS-detection flag, which activates fingerprinting logic to estimate the target’s OS. Service version detection goes a step further by probing open ports to identify the exact software and version in use, often by parsing banners and performing version-specific probes. This is what the service version detection flag enables in NMAP.

The lab that focuses on NMAP with both OS detection and service version detection explicitly demonstrates how to combine these capabilities—running NMAP with the appropriate options to discover the target's OS fingerprint and the precise versions of services exposed. This direct focus on both aspects makes it the best fit for learning how to enumerate a target’s operating system and services using NMAP. The other labs cover different tools or broader NMAP usage without emphasizing these specific detection capabilities.