NetSec-Pro Paloalto Networks Palo Alto Networks Network Security Professional Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

Negated source addressesexclude traffic from the specified region. To avoid accidental connectivity loss for trafficfrom that region, create a separate Security policy toexplicitly permit it.

“When you use a negated region in a Security policy rule, ensure to create an additional Security policy to permit traffic from the excluded (negated) region to avoid unintentional drops.”

(Source: Prisma Access Policy Best Practices)

This ensuresexplicit inclusivity for the excluded region, maintaining reliable connectivity.

The firewall must be running a PAN-OS version that is supported by Panorama. This means thatPanorama must be running the same or a newer PAN-OS versionas the one being installed on the firewalls to maintain compatibility.

“Before you upgrade the firewall, ensure that Panorama is running the same or a later PAN-OS version than the firewall. Panorama must always be at the same or a higher version to maintain compatibility.”

(Source: Panorama Admin Guide – Upgrade Process)

When migrating from aperpetual VM-Series firewall license to a flexible VM licensing model, two critical steps are needed:

Allocate same number of vCPUs– This ensures that the VM-Series capacity remains consistent and avoids resource bottlenecks.

“When migrating perpetual VM-Series licenses to flexible VM licensing, allocate the same vCPU and memory resources to ensure equivalent performance.”

(Source: VM-Series Flexible Licensing Migration)

Limit to same security services– Flexible licensing requires maintaining the same security services to preserve licensing compliance.

“Ensure that you allow only the same security services on the flexible VM instance as were licensed on the perpetual VM.”

(Source: Flexible Licensing and Service Subscriptions)

Panorama allows engineers to createcustom reportsand generatePDF summaryformats for consistent reporting across NGFWs.

Custom Reports

“Custom Reports provide tailored reporting based on URL categories, application usage, and threat visibility. They are generated within Panorama and can include data on newly categorized AI URL types.”

(Source: Panorama Reports)

PDF Summaries

“You can generate PDF summary reports to distribute these insights across branch firewalls, providing an easy-to-read format for compliance and operational review.”

(Source: Export Reports as PDF)

Together, these options provide aconsistent, standardized methodto push insights about AI-based URL categories to branch devices.

Palo Alto Networks'Enterprise DLPuses a centralized DLP profile that can be applied consistently across both Prisma Access and NGFWs using Strata Cloud Manager (SCM). This eliminates the need for duplicating efforts across multiple locations.

“Enterprise DLP profiles are created and managed centrally through the Cloud Management Interface and can be used seamlessly across NGFW and Prisma Access deployments.”

(Source: Enterprise DLP Overview)

In Prisma Access, theinterzonesecurity policy rule isavailableand plays a crucial role in controlling trafficbetweenzones.

“You can configure an interzone rule to control traffic that flows between different zones in Prisma Access, enabling granular security policy enforcement.”

(Source: Prisma Access Security Policies)

This ensures comprehensive control of traffic crossing security boundaries in the cloud-delivered architecture.

When implementing SSL Forward Proxy decryption for outbound traffic, two key challenges that must be evaluated are:

Incomplete certificate chains: This occurs when the firewall cannot validate the entire certificate chain for a site, which may cause decryption failures.

Certificate pinning: Applications like banking apps may use certificate pinning to prevent MITM (man-in-the-middle) attacks, and these applications will break if SSL Forward Proxy is used.

“When decrypting outbound SSL traffic, you must consider incomplete certificate chains, which can cause decryption to fail if the firewall cannot validate the entire chain. Also, be aware of certificate pinning in applications that prevents decryption by rejecting forged certificates.”

(Source: Palo Alto Networks Decryption Concepts)

Dynamic path selectionis the foundation of SD-WAN, leveraging real-time performance data to dynamically route traffic over the best available path.

“Dynamic path selection continuously monitors performance metrics (loss, latency, jitter) and makes real-time routing decisions to ensure application SLAs are met across the WAN.”

(Source: Prisma SD-WAN Dynamic Path Selection)

Establishing dynamic path selection first ensures the rest of the SD-WAN optimizations (e.g., failover, QoS) work effectively.

Cloud NGFW Security Policiesin the AWS Console are evaluated in the exactcreation order– they do not have explicit rule priority fields.

“In AWS, security rules are evaluated in the order they are created. To ensure the correct evaluation logic, create them in the desired order from top to bottom.”

(Source: Cloud NGFW for AWS Policy Evaluation)

Unlike Panorama, AWS-native management of Cloud NGFWs uses creation order as the evaluation sequence.

InPalo Alto Networks' Single-Pass Parallel Processing (SP3)architecture, SSL/TLS decryption occurs only during theslow pathwhen the firewall first encounters a new session.

“SSL/TLS decryption, which requires CPU-intensive cryptographic operations, is performed during the slow path when establishing new sessions. Once decrypted, traffic is processed in the fast path for subsequent packets.”

(Source: Packet Flow and SP3 Architecture)

After the initial decryption in the slow path, decrypted traffic is handled by fast path for efficiency.

To preventSYN flood attacks, the NGFW usesSYN cookiesto validate legitimate session establishment.

“SYN cookies allow the firewall to verify the legitimacy of new session requests without allocating resources until the handshake is completed. This prevents SYN flood attacks from exhausting system resources.”

(Source: Flood Protection Best Practices)

SYN cookies mitigate resource exhaustion by ensuring only legitimate connections are established.

For large lists of specific URLs, creating acustom URL categoryand importing the list is the most efficient approach for granular URL filtering.

“You can create custom URL categories to define specific URLs or patterns and enforce policies for these categories. This is the most efficient way to handle large sets of URLs.”

(Source: Custom URL Categories)

This approach saves time compared to manual rule creation or using generic application filters.

Client-based VPNsolutions like GlobalProtect provide full coverage for the mobile workforce by extending the enterprise security stack to remote endpoints. It establishes a secure tunnel, allowing consistent security policies across the enterprise perimeter and the mobile workforce.

“GlobalProtect is a client-based VPN that provides secure, consistent protection for mobile users by extending the security capabilities of Prisma Access to remote endpoints, covering all network protocols.”

(Source: GlobalProtect Admin Guide)

Heartbeat pollingis a core HA function to monitor connectivity between HA peers, leveraging ICMP pings to determine link health and availability.

“Heartbeat Polling uses ICMP pings to verify the connectivity and health of the HA peers. If heartbeat polling fails, the firewall considers the peer to be down and may initiate failover.”

(Source: HA Link and Path Monitoring)

If ICMP pings fail, checking heartbeat polling logs helps identify if link or path monitoring triggers the failover.

Protecting againstmaliciousandmisconfigured domainsrequires two critical services:

Advanced Threat Prevention

Provides signature-based and advanced analysis to identify threats, including DNS-based attacks.

“Advanced Threat Prevention enables the NGFW to detect and prevent exploits and malware-based communications, including those leveraging DNS.”

(Source: Advanced Threat Prevention)

Advanced DNS Security

Specifically designed to detect and sinkhole malicious and misconfigured DNS queries.

“DNS Security uses real-time intelligence to block DNS-based threats, protect against data exfiltration, and automatically sinkhole suspicious domain lookups.”

(Source: DNS Security)

Bycombiningthese services in security policies, NGFWs ensure robust protection against domain-based threats and misconfigurations.

TheVM-Series NGFWsare designed to integrate seamlessly with bothPanoramaandStrata Cloud Manager(SCM), allowing administrators to managephysical and virtualfirewall deployments from either interface.

“You can manage VM-Series Next-Generation Firewalls using either Panorama for centralized management of all firewalls or Strata Cloud Manager for cloud-based management, giving flexibility across hybrid environments.”

(Source: VM-Series Management Options)

Unified management flexibility is key for enterprises with hybrid or multi-cloud deployments.

Prisma Access for secure remote access

“Prisma Access extends consistent security and optimized connectivity to branch locations, enabling secure access for mobile and branch users.”

(Source: Prisma Access Overview)

Centralized management for consistent policy enforcement

“Centralized management using Strata Cloud Manager or Panorama ensures security policies and updates are uniformly applied across distributed locations, preventing policy drift and security gaps.”

(Source: Strata Cloud Manager Best Practices)

These two practices are foundational for modern, distributed enterprise networks to maintain security posture and performance.