What is the tool used to discover the router on the path to a target host or firewall location?

• A. Cheops
• B. Traceroute
• C. Port scanners
• D. Email Indicators

Answer: (B)

Traceroute is the tool that reveals the path to a target by showing each router (hop) along the way. It sends probes with limited TTL, so every router that handles the packet sends back an ICMP time-exceeded message or a similar response, letting you map the route from your machine to the destination. The sequence of responding hops gives you the path to the target and often the round-trip time to each hop, which helps identify where a firewall or filtering device sits or where a network issue might be. In practice, you’ll see a list of router IPs (and sometimes hostnames) as the packet travels toward the target, and you’ll notice gaps if some devices block or rate-limit those responses. This makes traceroute the best fit for discovering the router locations on the path. Other options aren’t focused on path discovery: port scanners look for open services on a host, email indicators are irrelevant to network routing, and Cheops-ng is a broader topology mapper but not the standard tool specifically for tracing the route to a destination.