50 Cybersecurity Practitioner Practice Questions: Question Bank 2025

A small business wants to reduce the risk of credential theft impacting access to its cloud applications. Which control most directly mitigates the impact of stolen passwords?

An analyst sees outbound connections from an internal host to many random external IPs over a short time, with repeated connection attempts and little data transfer. What is the MOST likely security concern?

Which statement best describes the main purpose of a next-generation firewall (NGFW) compared to a traditional port-based firewall?

A security team wants a single cloud-delivered service to help prevent successful phishing by combining DNS security, URL filtering, and threat prevention for remote users. Which Palo Alto Networks solution best fits this goal?

An organization is building a network security policy and wants to follow best practices for allowing outbound internet access. Which approach is MOST appropriate?

After enabling URL filtering, users report they cannot access a newly launched business partner website. Security policy logs show the traffic is allowed, but the browser displays a block page. What is the MOST likely cause?

A company wants to implement Zero Trust principles for internal applications. Which design choice aligns BEST with Zero Trust?

A security operations team wants to reduce time spent on repetitive incident response tasks such as enriching alerts with threat intelligence, opening tickets, and notifying stakeholders. Which Palo Alto Networks product is purpose-built for this?

A remote workforce uses a mix of managed laptops and unmanaged personal devices. The company wants to reduce data exfiltration risk to unsanctioned SaaS apps and enforce consistent web controls for all users, regardless of location. Which architecture best meets this requirement?

A SOC receives multiple alerts for suspicious PowerShell activity on endpoints and wants to quickly determine scope (which hosts/users), correlate related network indicators, and contain affected endpoints. Which Palo Alto Networks solution most directly supports these goals?

A security analyst explains that the primary goal of "least privilege" is to reduce what type of risk?

A small business wants to allow a vendor to troubleshoot a server over the internet for a short period. Which approach is the BEST practice to reduce risk while enabling access?

Which Palo Alto Networks offering is primarily used to provide enterprise-grade SASE capabilities (secure web gateway, ZTNA, and cloud-delivered security) to remote users and branch locations?

A company is moving a customer-facing web application to the cloud and wants to protect it from common web attacks (for example, SQL injection and cross-site scripting) without relying only on the NGFW. Which solution is most appropriate?

An organization wants to apply consistent security policies across multiple Palo Alto Networks firewalls and reduce operational overhead when making changes. Which component is designed for centralized management and policy administration?

A SOC receives multiple alerts indicating an endpoint is attempting to execute a newly downloaded file. The team wants to quickly determine whether the file is malicious and block it across the environment. Which Palo Alto Networks capability best aligns to this goal?

A company enforces a policy that only sanctioned SaaS applications may be used. Users are still accessing unsanctioned file-sharing services over HTTPS. Which NGFW approach is most effective to identify and control the specific applications?

An incident responder wants to reduce dwell time by ensuring logs from firewalls and endpoints are retained centrally and can be searched during investigations. Which operational practice best supports this objective?

After enabling SSL/TLS decryption on a Palo Alto Networks NGFW, users report that some websites and applications fail intermittently. Decryption logs show certificate validation errors for those destinations. What is the most likely cause?

A security engineer is designing segmentation for a flat internal network. The goal is to limit lateral movement if a workstation is compromised while keeping administration manageable. Which design best aligns with Zero Trust principles?

An analyst wants a simple way to categorize and communicate the potential business impact of a new vulnerability (e.g., low vs. high urgency) before deciding on remediation timelines. Which concept best supports this goal?

A security engineer is asked to explain why multi-factor authentication (MFA) is recommended for remote access. What is the primary security benefit of MFA?

An organization wants to reduce lateral movement if an endpoint is compromised. Which approach most directly addresses this goal at the network level?

A SOC team wants to quickly search, correlate, and investigate alerts across firewalls, endpoints, and cloud sources from a single interface. Which Palo Alto Networks offering is designed for this security operations use case?

A company uses a next-generation firewall and enables SSL/TLS decryption for outbound web traffic. Some users report certain websites fail to load. Which is a common first troubleshooting step that aligns with best practice?

A security team wants to enforce consistent security policy across multiple firewalls and reduce misconfigurations by standardizing rule structure. Which operational best practice most directly supports this objective?

A company is moving workloads to public cloud and wants to apply advanced threat prevention controls (e.g., IPS, malware prevention) to north-south and east-west traffic using Palo Alto Networks capabilities. Which approach best fits this requirement?

An organization wants to implement Zero Trust principles for remote users. They already have a VPN solution but lack granular application access control and continuous verification. Which combination best aligns with Zero Trust for remote access?

After deploying new security policies, users report intermittent access to a SaaS application. The firewall logs show sessions allowed, but the application still times out. Which next step is most appropriate to isolate whether the issue is security inspection-related?

A company wants to prevent data exfiltration of sensitive documents to unsanctioned cloud storage while still allowing approved collaboration tools. Which strategy is most aligned with best practice using a layered security approach?

A small business wants to reduce the risk of credential theft. They can only implement one control this quarter and want the biggest immediate impact for most users. Which control is the BEST first step?

An analyst sees DNS queries to newly registered domains followed by outbound TLS connections with no Server Name Indication (SNI). Which activity does this MOST likely indicate?

A company wants consistent security policy enforcement for employees working from home and when traveling, without forcing all traffic through a full-tunnel VPN. Which Palo Alto Networks capability BEST fits this requirement?

A security team wants to detect known malware on endpoints, stop exploit techniques, and allow analysts to investigate incidents from a single endpoint console. Which Palo Alto Networks product is designed for this use case?

A firewall policy allows the application 'ssl' from the internet to a DMZ web server. Users report the site is unreachable, but the security log shows sessions are allowed. The traffic is hitting the correct public IP. What is the MOST likely cause?

A SOC lead wants to reduce alert fatigue by prioritizing incidents that represent real risk, correlating events across multiple data sources, and automating response steps such as disabling accounts or blocking indicators. Which approach BEST matches this goal?

An organization is designing segmentation for its internal network. The goal is to limit lateral movement if a workstation is compromised while still allowing required business services. Which strategy BEST aligns with zero trust principles?

A company wants to safely analyze unknown attachments and links from email before allowing users to open them. They also want new threat intelligence to be shared quickly across enforcement points. Which Palo Alto Networks capability MOST directly supports this?

After enabling SSL decryption for outbound traffic, a team notices some applications break and users report certificate warnings. They also discover that certain financial and healthcare sites must not be decrypted for compliance reasons. What is the BEST practice to address both functionality and compliance?

A security engineer is asked to design a resilient perimeter architecture using Palo Alto Networks firewalls. The business requires minimal downtime during maintenance and automatic failover if a device fails. Which design BEST meets these requirements?

A user receives an email that appears to be from the HR department asking them to "verify" their credentials via a link. The email uses urgent language and a slightly misspelled sender domain. What is the BEST classification of this attack?

A security analyst is reviewing access controls and wants to ensure users only have the permissions needed to perform their job duties and no more. Which principle does this describe?

An administrator wants users on a guest Wi-Fi network to reach the internet but not access internal corporate resources. Which network security approach BEST achieves this goal?

A company is adopting a Zero Trust approach. Which action BEST aligns with Zero Trust principles for network access decisions?

A branch office needs secure connectivity to multiple SaaS applications and the public internet, while also enforcing consistent security policies without backhauling traffic to a data center. Which Palo Alto Networks capability is MOST aligned to this requirement?

A SOC analyst needs to quickly determine whether multiple alerts across endpoints and network devices are part of the same attack campaign and to prioritize response actions. Which security operations concept BEST supports this requirement?

A company wants to reduce the risk of malware reaching users through newly registered domains that have no established reputation. Which control would BEST address this risk?

An organization wants to apply consistent security inspection to inbound, outbound, and east-west traffic in a public cloud environment. Which architecture approach BEST meets this need?

After a suspected breach, an analyst is asked to ensure evidence can be used in a formal investigation. Which practice is MOST important to preserve the integrity and admissibility of collected evidence?

A security team deployed SSL/TLS decryption to improve threat detection, but users report some business-critical web applications failing. The team wants to keep security benefits while restoring access. What is the MOST appropriate next step?