Which practice helps organize discovered targets during testing?

• A. Maintaining an inventory spreadsheet including system name, IP address, OS, and discovery source
• B. Sticky notes
• C. In-memory lists
• D. Memory

Answer: (A)

Organizing discovered targets effectively hinges on keeping a persistent, structured inventory of assets found during testing. A spreadsheet-style inventory that captures system name, IP address, operating system, and discovery source provides a durable, searchable record you can share across tools and teammates. It supports reproducibility and auditing, helps you manage scope, and makes it easy to trace how each target was identified, which is important for validation and prioritization. Including the OS aids in planning techniques and tool choices, while the discovery source clarifies the provenance of each entry.

Sticky notes are informal and easily lost or scattered, making tracking unreliable over time. In-memory lists exist only while the tool is running and vanish when it restarts, so they’re not dependable for a project’s duration. Memory, in this sense, is similarly ephemeral and doesn’t give you a durable record for reporting or re-testing.