Paloalto Networks PCNSE Palo Alto Networks Certified Security Engineer (PCNSE) PAN-OS 11.0 Exam Practice Test

credential-phishing/set-up-credential-phishing-prevention#idc77030dc-6022-4458-8c50-1dc0fe7cffe4

"- Force Template Value will as the name suggest remove any local configuratio and apply the value define the panorama template. But this is valid only for overlapping configuration" "You need to be careful, what is actually defined in the template. For example - if you decide to enable HA in the template, but after that you decide to not push it with template and just disable it again (remove the check from the "Enable HA" checkbox). This still will be part of the template, because now your template is explicitely defining HA disabled. If you made a change in the template, and later decide that you don't want to control this setting with template, you need to revert the config by clicking the green bar next to the changed value"

The Advanced Routing Engine in Palo Alto Networks firewalls enhances the capabilities of routing functionalities, allowing for more complex and robust routing configurations. To enable the Advanced Routing Engine on a Palo Alto Networks firewall, an administrator needs to navigate to the Network tab, select Virtual Routers, and then access the settings for the specific virtual router they wish to configure. Within the Router Settings under the General tab, there's an option to enable Advanced Routing features. After enabling this option, the administrator must commit the changes and perform a system reboot for the changes to take effect. This process allows the firewall to utilize advanced routing protocols and features, enhancing its ability to manage and route traffic more efficiently across different network segments.

When deploying a large number of firewalls, such as 15 GlobalProtect gateways around the world, it's crucial to have a scalable configuration approach. Panorama offers several features to help scale configurations efficiently:

B. Template stacks:

Template stacks in Panorama allow administrators to create a collection of configuration templates that can be applied to multiple firewalls or device groups. This enables the consistent deployment of shared settings (such as network configurations, security profiles, etc.) across all managed firewalls, ensuring uniformity and reducing the effort required to manage individual firewall configurations.

D. Variables:

Variables in Panorama provide a way to customize template configurations for individual firewalls or device groups without altering the overall template. For example, a variable can be used to define a unique IP address, hostname, or other specific settings within a shared template. When the template is applied, Panorama replaces the variables with the actual values specified for each device or device group, allowing for customization within a standardized framework.

By using template stacks and variables, an administrator can rapidly deploy and manage configurations across multiple GlobalProtect gateways, ensuring consistency while still accommodating site-specific requirements. This approach streamlines the deployment process and enhances the manageability of a widespread GlobalProtect infrastructure.

support-by-feature-table

A template is a set of configuration options that can be applied to one or more firewalls or virtual systems managed by Panorama. A template can include settings from the Device and Network tabs on the firewall web interface, such as login banner, SSL decryption exclusion, and dynamic updates4. These settings can be configured in a template named “Global” and included in all template stacks. A template stack is a group of templates that Panorama pushes to managed firewalls in an ordered hierarchy4. References: Manage Templates and Template Stacks, PCNSE Study Guide (page 50)

Palo Alto firewalls can gather User-ID mappings from proxies via Syslog (Option B), parsing log messages with user-IP data, and XFF Headers (Option D), extracting user info from HTTP headers (X-Forwarded-For) if the proxy supports it.

For IPsec VPN reliability, Option B enhances failover speed by adding a backup tunnel and tuning tunnel monitoring. Reducing the interval (e.g., to 2 seconds) and threshold (e.g., to 3 retries) ensures quick detection and failover to the backup tunnel, minimizing disruption.

A:

D:

The VPN peer on one end is using policy-based VPN. You must configure a Proxy ID on the Palo Alto Networks firewall.

A Panorama upgrade can fail if expired certificates (Option D) prevent secure communication with update servers or managed devices. Certificates (e.g., device certificates) must be valid for the upgrade process to proceed.

Each WildFire cloud—global (U.S.), regional, and private—analyzes samples and generates WildFire verdicts independently of the other WildFire clouds. With the exception of WildFire private cloud verdicts, WildFire verdicts are shared globally, enabling WildFire users to access a worldwide database of threat data.

WildFire logs showing a "malicious" verdict with an "allow" action indicate that the initial traffic wasn’t blocked in real-time, likely because the Antivirus profile isn’t configured to act immediately on WildFire verdicts. By default, WildFire submits files for analysis, and signatures may take up to 24 hours to propagate globally unless real-time blocking is enabled. Configuring the Antivirus security profile (Option B) to "block" on malicious WildFire verdicts ensures that threats are blocked within minutes once the verdict is returned (typically 5-15 minutes), leveraging WildFire’s real-time signature updates.

The Cluster Synchronization Timeout in a high availability (HA) cluster defines how long a firewall waits for synchronization with its peer before transitioning to the Active state if the peer is unresponsive or synchronization fails. Option B accurately describes this as the maximum wait time before assuming control, ensuring HA stability.

When troubleshooting Palo Alto Networks services, such as dynamic updates, verifying the status of service routes is critical. Service routes determine how the firewall communicates with external services (e.g., Palo Alto Networks update servers, WildFire, DNS, etc.) from the Management Plane or data plane interfaces.

Why "debug dataplane internal vif route 250" is Correct

Purpose of the Command:

This command allows administrators to view the service routes configured on the firewall and verify if they are installed correctly and actively working.

The number 250 specifically refers to service routes in the Management Plane.

Output:

The command displays detailed information about service routes, including routing decisions, source interfaces, and next-hop IPs.

Helps identify issues such as:

Incorrect interface configuration.

Invalid next-hop IPs.

Missing routes for specific services.

Analysis of Other Options

debug dataplane internal vif route 255

Incorrect:

The number 255 does not correspond to service routes but is used for internal route debugging unrelated to management plane service routes.

show routing route type management

Incorrect:

This command does not exist in PAN-OS CLI. It might be a misrepresentation of another command.

debug dataplane internal vif route 250

Correct:

As explained above, this is the correct command for verifying service routes in the Management Plane.

show routing route type service-route

Incorrect:

This is not a valid PAN-OS CLI command.

PAN-OS Documentation Reference

Service Routes in PAN-OS 11.0:

The configuration and verification of service routes are covered under the Device > Setup > Services section of the GUI.

For CLI, the debug dataplane internal vif route 250 command is specifically used for troubleshooting service routes in the Management Plane.

For more details, refer to:

PAN-OS 11.0 CLI Guide: Covers debugging tools and service route verification.

PCNSA Study Guide: Domain 1 includes service route configurations and their importance in maintaining connectivity for management services.

In a High Availability (HA) configuration, particularly in an active-passive setup, it's crucial that the passive unit is kept up to date with the current state of the active unit. This ensures a seamless transition in the event of a failover. The HA4 interface is dedicated to this synchronization task.

D. Perform synchronization of sessions, forwarding tables, and IPSec security associations between firewalls in an HA pair:

The HA4 interface is responsible for the synchronization of critical stateful information between the active and passive units in an HA pair. This includes session information, ensuring that the passive unit can continue existing sessions without interruption if it needs to become active.

In addition to session information, HA4 also synchronizes forwarding tables, which contain information on how to route packets, and IPSec security associations, which are necessary for maintaining secure VPN tunnels.

This synchronization ensures that both units in an HA pair have identical information regarding the current state of the network, sessions, and security associations, enabling a smooth and immediate transition to the passive unit in case the active unit fails.

page 83

The Exceptions settings allows you to change the response to a specific signature. For example, you can block all packets that match a signature, except for the selected one, which generates an alert. The Exception tab supports filtering functions.

If you not believed, then login the firewall go to Vulnerability > Exceptions and select "Show all signatures". From there you will see all threat information including specific actions.

More detail:

In order to see what is in a template, the device-group needs the template referenced. Even if you add the firewall to both the template and device-group, the device-group will not see what is in the template. The following link has a video that demonstrates that B is the correct answer.

In Palo Alto Networks firewalls, the processing of NAT rules occurs in a top-down fashion, similar to security policies. To exclude a specific IP address from a broader source NAT rule, a more specific NAT rule must be placed above the broader rule.

C. Place a more specific NAT rule above the broader one:

Create a source NAT rule (NAT-Rule-1) to translate the broader network range (10.0.0.0/23) with dynamic IP and port translation. This rule allows the majority of the subnet to access the internet through NAT.

Create another NAT rule (NAT-Rule-2) with the source IP address in the original packet set specifically to the IP address that should not be translated (10.0.0.10/32). In this rule, set the source translation to none, indicating that this traffic should not be translated and thus not allowed to access the internet.

Place NAT-Rule-2 above NAT-Rule-1 in the NAT policy list. This ensures that the more specific rule (NAT-Rule-2) is evaluated first. If traffic matches NAT-Rule-2, it will not be translated or allowed to the internet, effectively excluding the specific server from internet access.

This configuration leverages the principle of specificity and the order of operation in NAT policies to exclude a specific IP address from source NAT translation, thereby preventing it from accessing the internet.

For active/passive HA upgrades, best practices minimize downtime by upgrading the passive peer first (Option D), rebooting it to confirm stability, restoring HA sync, and then upgrading the active peer. This keeps services running on the active firewall during the passive upgrade, ensuring a smooth transition with failover capability intact.

For virtual systems (vSys) on a Palo Alto Networks firewall to communicate with each other, especially when separate virtual routers (VRs) are used for each vSys, the configuration must facilitate proper routing and security policy enforcement. The key aspects to focus on include:

A. External zones with the virtual systems added:

External zones are special types of zones that are used to facilitate traffic flow between virtual systems within the same physical firewall. By adding virtual systems to an external zone, you enable them to communicate with each other, effectively bypassing the need for traffic to exit and re-enter the firewall.

D. Add a route with next hop next-vr by using the VR configured in the virtual system:

When using separate VRs for each vSys, it's essential to configure inter-VR routing. This is done by adding routes in each VR with the next hop set to 'next-vr', specifying the VR of the destination vSys. This setup enables traffic to be routed from one virtual system's VR to another, facilitating communication between them.

E. Ensure the virtual systems are visible to one another:

Visibility between virtual systems is a prerequisite for inter-vSys communication. This involves configuring the virtual systems in a way that they are aware of each other's existence. This is typically managed in the vSys settings, where you can specify which virtual systems can communicate with each other.

By focusing on these configuration details, the network security engineer can ensure that the virtual systems can communicate effectively, maintaining the necessary isolation while allowing the required traffic flow.

The CLI command "show system state filter-pretty sys.sl.p8.phy" is used to display detailed physical layer information, which would include the physical media connected to a specific interface such as ethernet1/8. This command is designed to filter the output to show relevant physical layer information for the specified interface.For more information on Palo Alto Networks CLI commands and their outputs, refer to the "PAN-OS® CLI Reference Guide".

The type of policy in Palo Alto Networks firewalls that can use Device-ID as a match condition is QoS. This is because Device-ID is a feature that allows the firewall to identify and classify devices on the network based on their characteristics, such as vendor, model, OS, and role1. QoS policies are used to allocate bandwidth and prioritize traffic based on various criteria, such as application, user, source, destination, and device2. By using Device-ID as a match condition in QoS policies, the firewall can apply different QoS actions to different types of devices, such as IoT devices, laptops, smartphones, etc3. This can help optimize the network performance and ensure the quality of service for critical applications and devices.

When using certificate authentication for firewall administration on Palo Alto Networks devices, the method used for authorization is typically the Local database. Certificate authentication ensures that the entity attempting to access the firewall is in possession of a valid certificate. Once the certificate is validated for authentication, the authorization process determines what level of access or permissions the authenticated entity has. This is usually managed locally on the firewall, where administrators can define roles and permissions associated with different users or certificates. Thus, the authorization process, in this case, leverages the Local database to enforce access controls and permissions, aligning with best practices for secure management of network devices.

Traffic view in the Monitor tab of the firewall GUI can display the information about the NAT policy that is in use for a traffic flow, if the Source or Destination NAT columns are included and reviewed in the detailed log view1. The Source NAT column shows the translated source IP address and port, and the Destination NAT column shows the translated destination IP address and port2. These columns can help the administrator identify which NAT policy is applied to the traffic flow based on the pre-NAT and post-NAT addresses and ports.

To prevent the import from affecting ongoing traffic when you import the configuration of an HA pair into Panorama, you should disable config sync on both firewalls. Config sync is a feature that enables the firewalls in an HA pair to synchronize their configurations and maintain consistency. However, when you import the configuration of an HA pair into Panorama, you want to avoid any changes to the firewall configuration until you verify and commit the imported configuration on Panorama. Therefore, you should disable config sync before importing the configuration, and re-enable it after committing the changes on Panorama12. References: Migrate a Firewall HA Pair to Panorama Management, PCNSE Study Guide (page 50)

In an active/active high availability (HA) firewall pair, when a firewall experiences a failure of a monitored path, it enters the “Tentative” state1. This state indicates that the firewall is synchronizing sessions and configurations from its peer due to a failure or a change in monitored objects such as a link or path. The firewall in this state is not fully functional but is working towards resuming normal operations by syncing with its peer. Therefore, the correct answer is B. Tentative.

IP flood thresholds, you can also use DoS Protection profiles to detect and prevent session exhaustion attacks in which a large number of hosts (bots) establish as many sessions as possible to consume a target’s resources. On the profile’s Resources Protection tab, you can set the maximum number of concurrent sessions that the device(s) defined in the DoS Protection policy rule to which you apply the profile can receive. When the number of concurrent sessions reaches its maximum limit, new sessions are dropped.

The timer that determines the frequency between packets sent to verify that the HA functionality on the other HA firewall is operational is the Hello Interval. The Hello Interval is the interval in milliseconds between hello packets that are sent to check the HA status of the peer firewall. The default value for the Hello Interval is 8000 ms for all platforms, and the range is 8000-60000 ms. If the firewall does not receive a hello packet from its peer within the specified interval, it will declare the peer as failed and initiate a failover12. References: HA Timers, Layer 3 High Availability with Optimal Failover Times Best Practices

A transparent proxy operates by intercepting traffic without client configuration, typically redirecting HTTP (port 80) or HTTPS (port 443) to a proxy port on the firewall. In Palo Alto Networks NGFWs, when configuring a NAT rule for a transparent proxy, the standard translated port is 8080 (Option C), commonly used for proxy services. This port is where the firewall redirects client traffic for processing (e.g., URL filtering or decryption) before forwarding it to the destination.

URL profile action alert.

File Profile action alert.

AV and Wildfire action Reset-both

Policy Action Allow.

The firewall inspects the content as per all the security profiles attached to the original matching rule. If it results in threat detection, then the corresponding security profile action is taken.

To determine which sources an engineer can use to gather information about application patterns for creating custom signatures, let’s analyze each option based on PAN-OS 11.0 documentation and typical network troubleshooting practices.

A. Traffic Logs

Why It’s Correct:

Traffic logs in PAN-OS provide details about all traffic flowing through the firewall, including:

Application details.

Source and destination IPs.

Ports used.

This data is essential for identifying patterns, such as specific ports, protocols, or behaviors associated with an application.

How to Use:

Navigate to Monitor > Logs > Traffic in the web interface.

Look for the relevant application traffic and note recurring patterns.

Documentation Reference:

PAN-OS 11.0 Admin Guide, Logging and Reporting Section: Discusses traffic logs as a resource for application and behavior analysis.

B. Data Filtering Logs

Why It’s Incorrect:

Data filtering logs focus on inspecting files, data patterns, or sensitive information such as credit card numbers. These logs are not designed for gathering application-specific traffic patterns.

Documentation Reference:

PAN-OS 11.0 Admin Guide: Details how data filtering logs are used for content inspection, not for creating application signatures.

C. Policy Optimizer

Why It’s Incorrect:

Policy Optimizer helps refine security policies by identifying unused or overly permissive rules. It does not provide information about traffic patterns for applications.

Documentation Reference:

PAN-OS 11.0 Admin Guide, Policy Optimization Section: Focuses on rule management rather than traffic pattern analysis.

D. Wireshark

Why It’s Correct:

Wireshark is a powerful network protocol analyzer that captures and analyzes traffic at a granular level. Engineers can:

Identify application-specific headers or payloads.

Examine protocol behaviors.

Spot unique signatures in application traffic.

How to Use:

Capture traffic flowing to/from the application using a span or mirrored port on the switch or firewall.

Analyze the captured packets for recurring patterns (e.g., specific headers or payload data).

Documentation Reference:

While not directly mentioned in PAN-OS documentation, Wireshark is commonly recommended as a tool for packet analysis in custom application signature creation.

Summary of Correct Choices

Traffic Logs:

Provides a high-level view of application behavior and network patterns.

Wireshark:

Allows deep packet inspection and analysis for identifying unique application behaviors.

PAN-OS 11.0 Study Guide References

PCNSA Study Guide:

Domain 3: Policy Evaluation and Management:

Discusses using traffic logs to refine policies and understand application behavior.

PCNSE Study Guide:

Domain 4: Securing Traffic:

Emphasizes tools like Wireshark for advanced traffic and application analysis.

For SSL Forward Proxy, the firewall generates certificates signed by its CA (here, Untrusted-CA), causing warnings if not trusted by clients. Importing Well-Known-Intermediate-CA and Well-Known-Root-CA into the Default Trusted Certificate Authorities (Option C) and marking them as trusted allows the firewall to issue certificates within this chain, eliminating warnings for sites like important-website.com (Requirement 1). Other untrusted CAs remain untrusted, triggering warnings (Requirement 2).

When a URL matches multiple categories, the category chosen is the one that has the most severe action defined below (block being most severe and allow least severe).

1 block

2 override

3 continue

4 alert

5 allow

Regardless of whether you generate Forward Trust certificates from your Enterprise Root CA or use a self-signed certificate generated on the firewall, generate a separate subordinate Forward Trust CA certificate for each firewall. The flexibility of using separate subordinate CAs enables you to revoke one certificate when you decommission a device (or device pair) without affecting the rest of the deployment and reduces the impact in any situation in which you need to revoke a certificate. Separate Forward Trust CAs on each firewall also helps troubleshoot issues because the CA error message the user sees includes information about the firewall the traffic is traversing. If you use the same Forward Trust CA on every firewall, you lose the granularity of that information.

The cause of the unsecured website warnings is that the forward trust certificate has not been signed by the self-signed root CA certificate. The forward trust certificate is used by the firewall to generate a copy of the server certificate for outbound SSL decryption (SSL Forward Proxy). The firewall signs the copy with the forward trust certificate and presents it to the client. The client then verifies the signature using the public key of the CA that issued the forward trust certificate. If the client does not trust the CA, it will display a warning message. Therefore, the forward trust certificate must be signed by a CA that is trusted by the client. In this case, the administrator has installed the self-signed root CA certificate in all client systems, so this CA should be used to sign the forward trust certificate. However, as shown in the screenshot, the forward trust certificate has a different issuer than the self-signed root CA certificate, which means it has not been signed by it. This causes the client to reject the signature and show a warning message. To fix this issue, the administrator should generate a new forward trust certificate and sign it with the self-signed root CA certificate12. References: Keys and Certificates for Decryption Policies, How to Configure SSL Decryption

Decryption can be resource-intensive, and in scenarios where the firewall is nearing its resource limits, optimizing decryption practices is crucial. One way to do this is by choosing more efficient encryption algorithms that require less computational power.

C. Use ECDSA instead of RSA for traffic that isn't sensitive or high-priority:

Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is known for requiring smaller key sizes compared to RSA for a comparable level of security. This translates to less computational overhead during the encryption and decryption processes.

By using ECDSA for traffic that isn't sensitive or high-priority, the administrator can reduce the processing load associated with decryption on the firewall. This is particularly beneficial in scenarios where resource optimization is necessary.

It's important to note that this approach does not compromise the security of encrypted traffic. Instead, it offers a more resource-efficient way to manage decryption, thus helping to maintain firewall performance even when system resources are under significant demand.

By judiciously applying this strategy, administrators can manage the decryption workload on the firewall, ensuring continued protection and inspection of encrypted traffic without overburdening the firewall's resources.

When administrative functions (e.g., licensing, updates) are moved to a data plane interface, the firewall uses that interface for outbound communication to Palo Alto Networks servers (e.g., licensing and update servers). If HTTPS/SSH work but licensing/updates fail, the issue is likely upstream connectivity. Option B ensures that upstream devices (routers, firewalls) allow and route traffic to required destinations (e.g., updates.paloaltonetworks.com) over ports like 443.

Using Policy Optimizer to migrate to application-based rules, adding the container application (Option D) ensures future-proofing. Container apps (e.g., "web-browsing") include child apps (e.g., specific web services) as signatures evolve, maintaining rule accuracy without over-matching unrelated traffic.

page 83

 The correct packet-flow sequence is C. PBF > Static route > Security policy enforcement. This sequence describes the order of operations that the firewall performs when processing a packet. PBF stands for Policy-Based Forwarding, which is a feature that allows the firewall to override the routing table and forward traffic based on the source and destination addresses, application, user, or service. PBF is evaluated before the static route lookup, which is the default method of forwarding traffic based on the destination address and the longest prefix match. Security policy enforcement is the stage where the firewall applies the security policy rules to allow or block traffic based on various criteria, such as zone, address, port, user, application, etc12. References: Policy-Based Forwarding, Packet Flow Sequence in PAN-OS

The table displays NAT rules configured on the firewall. The key points are:

Source Zone and Destination Zone define the traffic flow.

Source Address and Destination Address specify the IP addresses involved.

Service indicates the type of traffic (e.g., any, ping).

Source Translation and Destination Translation show the translated IP addresses for NAT.

Issue and Resolution Options

The application server at 192.168.197.40 can establish outbound connections but faces issues with inbound connections due to the shared NAT IP 198.51.100.88. The external database server cannot establish a secure connection back to 192.168.197.40.

Options to Resolve the Issue:

Replace the Two NAT Rules with a Single Rule:

Combining both DMZ servers into one NAT rule might simplify configuration but could cause issues in distinguishing inbound traffic for each server.

Pros: Simplifies rule management.

Cons: Might not address the inbound traffic issue properly.

New Public IP Address:

Obtaining a new public IP address for the new server (192.168.197.40) ensures dedicated inbound and outbound NAT.

Pros: Clear separation of traffic, resolves inbound connectivity issues.

Cons: Requires additional public IP.

Separate Source NAT and Destination NAT Rules:

Configuring distinct NAT rules for source and destination addresses without using the bidirectional option.

Pros: Clear and distinct rules for each direction of traffic.

Cons: More complex to manage, might require more firewall resources.

Move the NAT Rule:

Adjusting the order of NAT rules to prioritize the new server’s rule.

Pros: Simple reordering might resolve prioritization conflicts.

Cons: Might not fully resolve the inbound connection issue.

To protect against DNS misconfigurations, Advanced DNS Security and Advanced URL Filtering licenses (Option C) enable DNS sinkholing and domain monitoring. In an Anti-Spyware profile (Option D), the DNS Policies section allows adding specific domains to detect and block misconfigured records pointing to third-party sources.

For the transparent proxy method, the request contains the destination IP address of the web server and the proxy transparently intercepts the client request (either by being in-line or by traffic steering). There is no client configuration and Panorama is optional. Transparent proxy requires a loopback interface, User-ID configuration in the proxy zone, and specific Destination NAT (DNAT) rules. Transparent proxy does not support X-Authenticated Users (XAU) or Web Cache Communications Protocol (WCCP).

When sizing a decryption firewall deployment, two factors that should be considered are the encryption algorithm and the TLS protocol version. These factors affect the amount of resources and processing power that the firewall needs to decrypt and inspect SSL/TLS traffic.

The encryption algorithm is the method that the server and the client use to encrypt and decrypt the data exchanged in an SSL/TLS session. Different encryption algorithms have different levels of security and performance. For example, AES is a symmetric encryption algorithm that is faster and more efficient than RSA, which is an asymmetric encryption algorithm. However, RSA is more secure than AES because it uses public and private keys to encrypt and decrypt data, while AES uses a single shared key. The firewall must support the encryption algorithms that are used by the servers and clients that it decrypts, and it must have enough CPU and memory resources to handle the decryption workload12.

The TLS protocol version is the standard that defines how the server and the client establish and maintain an SSL/TLS session. Different TLS protocol versions have different features and requirements for encryption algorithms, cipher suites, certificates, handshake messages, etc. For example, TLS 1.3 is the latest and most secure version of TLS, which supports only strong encryption algorithms and cipher suites, such as AES-GCM and ChaCha20-Poly1305, and requires elliptic curve certificates. The firewall must support the TLS protocol versions that are used by the servers and clients that it decrypts, and it must have enough hardware acceleration resources to handle the decryption speed34.

The number of security zones in decryption policies and the number of blocked sessions are not relevant factors for sizing a decryption firewall deployment. The number of security zones in decryption policies only affects how the firewall matches traffic to decryption rules based on source and destination zones, but it does not affect the decryption performance or resource consumption. The number of blocked sessions only indicates how many sessions are denied by the firewall based on security policy or decryption policy rules, but it does not affect the decryption capacity or throughput56.

References: Encryption Algorithms, TLS Protocol Versions, Decryption Policy, PCNSE Study Guide (page 60)

and-destination-nat/source-nat

Palo Alto Networks recommends starting SSL decryption with High Risk categories (Option B) because they’re more likely to contain threats (e.g., malware, phishing) that require visibility for inspection, balancing security and resource use.

The Palo Alto Networks Best Practices for Anti-Spyware Profiles recommend enabling single-packet captures (PCAP) for medium, high, and critical severity threats. This allows for capturing the first packet of the malicious traffic for further analysis and investigation. PCAP should not be enabled for low and informational severity threats, as they generate a relatively high volume of traffic and are not particularly useful compared to potential threats2. References: Create the Data Center Best Practice Anti-Spyware Profile, Security Profile: Anti-Spyware, PCNSE Study Guide (page 57)