During a red team operation for XYZ Financial Services, security analyst Lily Jensen is assigned...

The technique described is decoy scanning. In CEH network scanning methodology, decoy scanning is used to make IDS and logging systems attribute scan traffic to multiple apparent sources instead of the attacker’s true IP address. The attacker configures the scanner to generate additional probe packets that appear to originate from several spoofed decoy IP addresses, mixed with the real attacker’s probes. This creates ambiguity for defenders because IDS alerts and firewall logs show many potential “scanners,” complicating attribution and response actions such as blocking a single source.

A key detail in the prompt is that Lily “includes multiple spoofed IP addresses alongside her own” and still “receives accurate results.” That matches how decoy scanning works in tools like Nmap: the attacker’s real IP must remain in the mix so that replies from the target return to the attacker, enabling accurate interpretation of port states. The decoys mainly exist to confuse monitoring and incident response teams by polluting the log trail.

Option C, IP spoofing, is too general and, by itself, typically prevents the attacker from receiving responses because return traffic goes to the spoofed address. Decoy scanning is a specific, structured use of spoofing combined with the real source to preserve results. Option A refers to stealth flag scans, which reduce handshake visibility but do not involve multiple spoofed sources. Option B, source routing, attempts to control packet paths and is not the described behavior. Therefore, the correct answer is Decoy Scanning.