Question

During an external assessment, you run 'nmap -sS -p- 203.0.113.45' and receive results showing port 443 as 'open', ports 22 and 3389 as 'filtered', and all other ports as 'closed'. The client insists SSH (22) is running and reachable internally. Which conclusion best explains the 'filtered' state for ports 22 and 3389?

Accepted Answer

A firewall or packet filter is dropping the SYN probes without returning a response, so Nmap cannot determine if the ports are open or closed

Answer

The services on ports 22 and 3389 have crashed and are no longer listening on the target host

Answer

The target host sent a RST packet for ports 22 and 3389, indicating no service is bound to them

Answer

Nmap identified the service versions but could not fingerprint them, marking the ports as filtered