Network Security Architect Practice Exam 2025: Latest Questions

An enterprise is designing a Zero Trust architecture and needs to ensure that users accessing cloud applications are continuously validated based on risk signals. Which Palo Alto Networks component is MOST critical for providing dynamic, context-aware access decisions?

A security architect must design a solution to automatically quarantine compromised endpoints detected by Cortex XDR. What integration approach provides the MOST comprehensive automated response capability?

During a business requirements gathering session, stakeholders express concern about compliance with data residency requirements for customer data processed in multiple geographic regions. Which architectural consideration is MOST important when designing a Prisma Access deployment?

An organization wants to implement microsegmentation in their data center to limit lateral movement. What is the BEST practice approach for designing security policy in a Zero Trust architecture?

A financial services company requires all API calls to their firewall management infrastructure to be logged and auditable for compliance purposes. Which approach BEST satisfies this requirement while enabling automated security operations?

When designing a high-availability architecture for next-generation firewalls protecting critical business applications, which factor is MOST important for ensuring session continuity during a failover event?

A multinational corporation needs to analyze security requirements for a merger that will integrate networks from three acquired companies, each with different security maturity levels and technology stacks. What should be the architect's FIRST priority?

An architect is designing decryption policies for SSL/TLS traffic inspection. The organization has concerns about inspecting traffic to healthcare providers due to regulatory constraints. What is the BEST approach?

A security architect must design an automated response system that correlates network security events from Palo Alto firewalls, endpoint events from Cortex XDR, and cloud application events from Prisma SaaS. The solution must automatically adjust security posture based on threat intelligence. Which architectural pattern BEST achieves this requirement?

An enterprise is implementing Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and needs to provide contractors with access to specific internal applications without providing network-level access. The contractors use unmanaged devices. Which architectural approach BEST meets these requirements while maintaining security?

An organization is implementing a Zero Trust architecture and needs to ensure that users accessing cloud applications are continuously verified. Which Palo Alto Networks capability should be the primary component of this solution?

A financial services company requires comprehensive visibility into encrypted traffic for compliance purposes but cannot break TLS for certain regulatory systems. What architectural approach best addresses this requirement?

An enterprise is designing an API-driven security automation solution using Palo Alto Networks firewalls. They need to dynamically update security policies based on threat intelligence feeds every 5 minutes. What is the most appropriate architectural approach?

During a business requirements analysis, a retail company indicates they need to segment their network to protect payment card data while maintaining ease of management. They have 50 stores, each with point-of-sale systems, guest WiFi, and corporate systems. What segmentation strategy best aligns with their business and technical requirements?

What is the fundamental principle that differentiates Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) from traditional VPN-based remote access?

A global manufacturer is implementing a security architecture for their Industrial Control Systems (ICS) environment. They need to monitor OT protocols while maintaining safety-critical system availability. What architectural consideration is most critical?

An organization needs to integrate their Palo Alto Networks firewalls with their SOAR platform to automate incident response. Which integration method provides the most comprehensive bidirectional communication for complex orchestration workflows?

A healthcare organization's technical requirements specify that they need to inspect traffic for Protected Health Information (PHI) leakage while maintaining HIPAA compliance. What architectural component is essential for this requirement?

In a Zero Trust microsegmentation design, an architect needs to secure east-west traffic between application tiers in a data center. What approach best implements least-privilege access?

What is the primary benefit of implementing security orchestration through Panorama for a multi-cloud environment?

A financial services organization is implementing Zero Trust and needs to enforce security policies based on user identity, device posture, and application risk across their hybrid environment. They have multiple cloud providers, on-premises data centers, and remote workers. Which architectural approach best supports comprehensive Zero Trust policy enforcement?

An enterprise is designing API integration between their SOAR platform and Palo Alto Networks firewalls to automate incident response workflows. During a security incident, they need to automatically quarantine compromised hosts by creating dynamic address groups and applying restrictive policies. What is the most efficient API-based approach to achieve this?

A security architect is gathering business requirements for a new data center security design. The business stakeholders emphasize the need for 'always-available services' and mention they cannot tolerate any downtime during security updates or hardware failures. Which technical requirement should the architect prioritize in their design?

An organization has implemented microsegmentation in their data center using Palo Alto Networks firewalls. They are experiencing performance issues with their database cluster, which requires high-throughput, low-latency communication between nodes. Security policy logs show thousands of allowed sessions per second between database servers. How should the architect optimize this design while maintaining security visibility?

A global organization is implementing Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) using Prisma Access. They need to provide contractors and partners access to specific internal applications without granting network-level access or requiring full VPN connectivity. The applications include both web-based and client-server applications. Which approach best implements least-privilege access?