PSE-SoftwareFirewall Practice Exam Questions with Answers Palo Alto Networks Systems Engineer (PSE): Software Firewall Professional Certification

?This step involves setting up a connection between Panorama (the centralized management platform for Palo Alto Networks firewalls) and the VMware NSX Manager. This communication is essential for managing and orchestrating the VM-Series firewalls within the NSX environment.

Data-plane vCPU Licensing:

The CN-Series firewalls are licensed based on the number of data-plane vCPUs. This licensing model reflects the processing power dedicated to handling traffic and security enforcement within the containerized environment.

?For automating the deployment of VM-Series firewalls from NSX Manager, Panorama must be configured to recognize and communicate with both the NSX Manager and vCenter. This ensures that Panorama can manage the firewall policies and orchestration efficiently.

The CN-Series firewall prevents data exfiltration by inspecting the content of outbound traffic. It uses advanced security features, such as threat prevention and data loss prevention (DLP), to detect and block suspicious activities and unauthorized data transfers, ensuring sensitive data remains within the secure environment.

References:

Palo Alto Networks CN-Series Documentation: CN-Series Documentation

Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention: Threat Prevention

Independent Upgrade:

The VM-Series plugin can be upgraded independently of the PAN-OS version. This allows for flexibility in maintaining and enhancing the plugin without the need for a complete PAN-OS upgrade.

?Enabling Threat Prevention on Palo Alto Networks firewalls provides comprehensive protection against inbound threats by inspecting traffic for exploits, malware, and other malicious activities.

?Reference: The Threat Prevention service is detailed in the PAN-OS documentation, highlighting its role in securing inbound traffic by leveraging various threat detection and prevention techniques.

?Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention Documentation

Zero Trust implementation revolves around the principle that no entity, inside or outside the network, should be trusted by default. The primary methods that benefit an organization are:

Security automation is seamlessly integrated: Zero Trust requires continuous monitoring and verification of every device and user attempting to access resources. Automation helps in efficiently managing these processes, ensuring that security policies are consistently enforced without human error. Automated tools can quickly detect anomalies, respond to threats, and update access controls dynamically.

CN-Series for DevOps deployments:

The CN-Series firewall is specifically designed to secure containerized environments and is ideal for protecting extensive DevOps deployments. It integrates seamlessly with Kubernetes and other container orchestration platforms, providing the necessary security controls for DevOps processes.

?Ping monitoring:

This mechanism involves monitoring the reachability of a specified IP address. If the firewall cannot ping the address, it may trigger a failover.

NAT (Network Address Translation) protects and hides an internal network in an outbound flow by translating internal private IP addresses to a public IP address. This process masks the internal IP addresses from external networks, providing security and privacy for the internal network. NAT is commonly used in outbound traffic to allow multiple devices on a local network to communicate with external networks while appearing as a single IP address.

References:

Palo Alto Networks NAT Configuration Guide: NAT Configuration

Palo Alto Networks Concepts: NAT

In Cisco ACI, traffic is directed to a Palo Alto Networks firewall by creating contracts between endpoint groups (EPGs) that send traffic to the firewall. These contracts define the policy for communication between EPGs, ensuring that traffic is inspected and secured by the firewall before reaching its destination.

References:

Cisco ACI and Palo Alto Networks Integration Guide: Contracts and Policies

Cisco ACI Fundamentals: ACI Contracts

To avoid split brain scenarios in an active-passive high availability (HA) pair deployment, the management interface can be used as the HA1 backup link. This ensures reliable communication between the HA pair and prevents both firewalls from assuming the active role simultaneously, which can happen if they lose connectivity with each other on the primary HA1 link.

References:

Palo Alto Networks High Availability Guide: HA Configuration

Best Practices for HA Configuration: Avoiding Split Brain

?Containers are typically designed to run a specific application or service, meaning they have a limited and well-defined set of processes. This makes it easier to implement and manage runtime security based on allow lists, as any deviation from the expected processes can be quickly identified and mitigated.

?Reference: Security best practices for container environments emphasize the use of allow lists to enforce runtime security, leveraging the predictable nature of container processes.

?Palo Alto Networks Container Security Guide

In Kubernetes, configuration files are typically written in YAML (.yaml) format. YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) is preferred due to its readability and ease of use for defining complex data structures like those required for Kubernetes deployments. Kubernetes uses these YAML files to define resources such as pods, services, and deployments.

References:

Kubernetes Documentation on YAML: Kubernetes YAML

Kubernetes Getting Started Guide: YAML Basics