50 Network Security Professional Practice Questions: Question Bank 2025

An administrator wants to allow users to browse the internet while blocking known malware and command-and-control traffic with minimal policy complexity. Which Palo Alto Networks capability best addresses this requirement?

A security engineer is creating a new security policy rule to allow an internal app. What is the Palo Alto Networks best practice for referencing traffic in the rule?

Remote users need consistent internet security controls when off-network, and the company wants cloud-managed enforcement with minimal on-prem changes. Which solution best fits?

An administrator needs to quickly validate whether traffic is being allowed or denied and which security rule is matching. Where is the best place to check on the firewall?

A company has two ISP links on its perimeter firewall. They want outbound internet traffic to prefer ISP1 but automatically fail over to ISP2 if ISP1 becomes unavailable. Which configuration is most appropriate?

After enabling SSL Forward Proxy decryption, users report certificate warnings in their browsers. The firewall is correctly decrypting traffic. What is the most likely cause?

A security team wants to reduce the risk of credential theft by preventing users from submitting corporate credentials to look-alike phishing sites. Which approach best addresses this goal in a Palo Alto Networks environment?

A firewall shows traffic is allowed, but the application is identified as 'unknown-tcp' instead of the expected business application. What is the most likely reason?

An organization is designing segmentation between departments using a Palo Alto Networks NGFW. They require scalable policy administration with clear separation of roles so each department admin can manage only their own policies and objects. Which design is most appropriate?

A company uses Prisma Access for remote users. Some users intermittently cannot access a specific SaaS application, while general internet access works. The security team needs to isolate whether the issue is policy enforcement, DNS resolution, or the upstream SaaS. What is the best first step in a structured troubleshooting approach?

A branch office uses GlobalProtect to reach internal applications. Users report that some SaaS apps are slow only when connected to VPN, but internal apps are fine. The security team wants to keep security inspection for internet traffic while improving performance for SaaS. What is the best approach?

An administrator wants to ensure that security policy rules match on the actual application, not just the port, to reduce the risk of “port hopping.” Which Palo Alto Networks capability provides this?

You need to confirm whether a user’s traffic is being blocked by a specific security policy rule. What is the most direct log type to check first on a Palo Alto Networks firewall?

A security engineer is writing a new outbound security rule. They want to follow best practices to reduce accidental exposure while still allowing needed applications. Which rule design is recommended?

A company is adopting a SASE approach and wants remote users to have consistent security controls (threat prevention, URL filtering) without hairpinning through the data center. Which Palo Alto Networks design best meets this goal?

After enabling SSL decryption for outbound traffic, users report that some banking and healthcare sites fail to load. The organization wants to maintain decryption broadly but avoid breaking sensitive sites. What is the best practice solution?

A new policy rule allows Microsoft 365 access, but users still cannot authenticate to some services. Traffic logs show allowed sessions, but the application often remains 'ssl' instead of identifying as a Microsoft 365 App-ID. What is a likely cause and the best next step?

An organization wants to provide secure access to internal web applications for third-party contractors without putting them on the corporate network. They also want per-app access control and MFA. Which approach best fits?

A firewall is configured with an allow rule for an internal application, followed by a deny-all rule. Users still intermittently hit the deny-all rule for the same destination. Logs show the denied traffic uses a different source zone than expected. What is the most likely configuration issue?

A company uses both an on-prem next-generation firewall and Prisma Access. They want identical security policy intent (App-ID rules, URL categories, threat profiles) enforced across both environments with minimal duplication and consistent change control. What is the best architectural approach?

A security engineer wants to reduce false positives while blocking malware downloads. Which NGFW capability is best suited to identify malicious files regardless of the application used to transfer them?

A firewall admin needs to permit inbound HTTPS traffic to a public web server in a DMZ using a security policy rule. Which pair of match criteria is the most appropriate best practice for the destination and service?

In Prisma Access, an administrator wants to ensure mobile users always connect to the closest location for best performance without manual configuration. Which capability addresses this requirement?

A company wants to create a rule that allows Microsoft 365 but blocks personal webmail. Users often switch networks and their IP addresses change. Which approach is most effective to enforce this requirement consistently?

After configuring an IPSec site-to-site VPN, Phase 1 establishes successfully but Phase 2 fails intermittently. Which item is the MOST common cause to verify first?

A SOC analyst sees traffic allowed by security policy, but no Threat log entries appear even when testing with known benign signatures. Which configuration issue most likely explains the missing Threat logs?

A company uses Prisma Access and wants to prevent access to newly registered domains and high-risk categories for all mobile users, while still allowing approved business sites. Which policy approach best meets this requirement?

A firewall is configured for SSL Forward Proxy decryption. Users report some sites fail to load, and the Decryption logs show 'certificate unknown' errors for those sessions. What is the MOST likely cause?

A company plans to deploy Prisma Access for remote users and needs consistent access to on-prem applications while minimizing asymmetric routing and avoiding overlapping RFC1918 addressing issues across multiple branch networks. Which design choice best supports this?

A security engineer wants to ensure that only the intended application is allowed through a policy rule, even if the application attempts to use non-standard ports or tunneling. Which rule configuration is the strongest enforcement?

A security administrator wants to create a Security policy rule that only allows users in the Finance AD group to access an internal payroll web application, regardless of IP address changes. Which object should be referenced in the rule to meet this requirement?

A company is migrating remote users from a traditional VPN to a SASE approach. They want to enforce consistent web access policy and security inspection for users whether they are on or off the corporate network. Which Palo Alto Networks solution best fits this requirement?

An administrator needs to verify whether a specific traffic flow was allowed or blocked by the firewall. Which log type should be checked first to determine the policy action taken?

Which statement best describes the primary benefit of App-ID on a Palo Alto Networks NGFW?

A firewall has three Security policy rules that could match a session: Rule 1 (top) allows SSL to a server, Rule 2 denies all traffic to that server, Rule 3 allows all outbound internet. A user’s session to the server on TCP/443 is being allowed when it should be denied. What is the most likely reason?

A company wants to reduce the risk of data exfiltration to newly registered domains and low-reputation hosts without maintaining large manual blocklists. Which Security profile capability best addresses this requirement?

A Security rule references a URL Filtering profile, but users report that access to a specific HTTPS site is not being blocked as expected. Traffic logs show the application as 'ssl' and the URL category is blank. What is the most likely reason?

An administrator needs to ensure that only corporate-managed endpoints can access an internal application through GlobalProtect. The requirement is to validate endpoint posture (for example, disk encryption enabled and a required EDR running). Which feature should be used?

A company wants to design a resilient SASE deployment so remote users remain protected if a preferred cloud on-ramp becomes unavailable. Which design choice best supports this requirement?

After committing a change, an administrator sees that traffic is intermittently failing between two zones. Packet captures show sessions are created but then immediately reset. Traffic logs show action 'allow' and the correct rule, but sessions end with 'tcp-rst-from-server'. What is the best next troubleshooting step on the firewall?

A security engineer wants to prevent users from accessing newly registered domains that are frequently used for phishing. Which Palo Alto Networks capability best addresses this requirement on the firewall?

An administrator created a Security policy to allow SSH from the IT subnet to a server, but the connection still fails. A traffic log entry shows the session is allowed by the correct rule, yet the TCP handshake never completes. Which firewall feature is the most likely cause?

Which statement best describes what Content-ID does on a Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall?

A company uses Prisma Access for mobile users. They want to grant access to a private internal application only after verifying device posture (for example, disk encryption and OS version). Which capability should be used?

An engineer needs to safely test a new Security policy change during business hours without committing it to the running configuration. What is the best practice approach?

A Security policy rule is configured with application 'any' and service 'application-default'. What is the primary benefit of using 'application-default'?

A network team reports intermittent connectivity to a SaaS application. The firewall shows sessions being reset with a reason indicating the server closed the connection. Which log type is most appropriate to review first to confirm the reset cause and context?

A company wants to extend consistent security policy to multiple branch locations without placing full next-generation firewalls at every site. They also want integrated routing and SD-WAN-style path selection. Which design best fits this requirement within Palo Alto Networks solutions?

A company enables SSL forward proxy decryption for outbound traffic. After enabling it, some applications fail due to certificate pinning. The company still wants maximum visibility while minimizing user impact. What is the best practice response?

A firewall administrator is troubleshooting why User-ID mappings are not appearing for users authenticating to an internal application. The network uses multiple Active Directory domains and a mix of domain controllers across regions. What is the most effective next step to validate the User-ID source and collection path?