Paloalto Networks Palo Alto Networks System Engineer Professional - Strata PSE-Strata Exam Dumps: Updated Questions & Answers (October 2025)

DNS sinkholing is a technique used to intercept and redirect malicious traffic to a designated IP address (sinkhole) to identify and prevent further malicious activity. When a compromised host attempts to connect to a known malicious domain, it is instead directed to the sinkhole IP address. This allows security administrators to identify infected hosts by examining traffic logs, where connections to the sinkhole IP address are recorded. DNS sinkholing does not require a separate license, and the relevant signatures are typically included in the Threat Prevention package.

The Best Practice Assessment (BPA) tool provided by Palo Alto Networks helps organizations to assess and improve their security posture. The tool identifies several best practices, including:

Use of Decryption Policies: Implementing decryption policies ensures that encrypted traffic can be inspected for threats. This is crucial for identifying and mitigating risks hidden within SSL/TLS encrypted traffic​ (Marks4Sure)​.

Measure the Adoption of URL Filters, App-ID, User-ID: The BPA tool evaluates how effectively the organization is utilizing URL filtering, application identification (App-ID), and user identification (User-ID) to enforce security policies. These technologies are essential for granular control and visibility over network traffic​ (Marks4Sure)​.

Identify Sanctioned and Unsanctioned SaaS Applications: The tool helps in identifying which SaaS applications are being used within the network, distinguishing between those that are sanctioned by IT and those that are not. This visibility is crucial for managing shadow IT and ensuring that only approved applications are used, reducing security risks​ (Marks4Sure)​.

The Palo Alto Networks platform approach to security offers several key benefits:

Operational Efficiencies: By automating incident review and response, the platform reduces the need for manual intervention, thereby decreasing the mean time to resolution (MTTR). This streamlines security operations and allows teams to focus on more strategic tasks.

Increased Security: The scalable cloud-delivered security services (CDSS) provided by Palo Alto Networks ensure that security measures can be dynamically scaled to meet the needs of the organization, offering robust protection against evolving threats.

Cost Savings: The platform reduces the overall IT management effort and device requirements, leading to significant cost savings. This is achieved through integrated solutions that minimize the need for multiple disparate security products and simplify management.

The following platform components can identify and protect against malicious email links:

WildFire hybrid cloud solution (A): This solution integrates on-premises and cloud-based threat intelligence to detect and prevent malware, including malicious email links.

WildFire public cloud (B): This component leverages the power of the cloud to provide real-time updates and protection against the latest threats, including those found in email links.

WF-500 (C): This appliance is designed to analyze files and links to detect malware and prevent it from spreading within the network.

These components work together to provide comprehensive protection against email-based threats, ensuring that organizations can identify and block malicious links before they cause harm.

The signature-based Threat Prevention features of the firewall that are informed by intelligence from the Threat Intelligence Cloud include Vulnerability Protection, Anti-Spyware, and Anti-Virus. The Threat Intelligence Cloud collects data from a variety of sources, including global threat intelligence networks, and analyzes this data to identify new threats. This intelligence is then used to update the signatures for these features, allowing the firewall to detect and prevent known threats effectively.

Vulnerability Protection: Uses updated signatures to detect and block exploit attempts against known vulnerabilities.

Anti-Spyware: Detects and prevents spyware based on signatures and threat intelligence.

Anti-Virus: Blocks known malware based on updated virus signatures.

These features are continuously updated with new intelligence, ensuring the firewall can defend against the latest threats.

References: Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention documentation, Threat Intelligence Cloud overview.

Dynamic user groups (DUGs) provide flexibility in managing user access and security policies.

Tagging Users via Panorama or Web UI (Option B):

Administrators can manually add or remove users from DUGs using the graphical interface provided by Panorama or the firewall’s Web UI.

AutoFocus is a threat intelligence service provided by Palo Alto Networks that gives context and insight into threat data by leveraging a vast repository of threat intelligence data. It can inform customers about whether a zero-day attack is specifically targeted at their organization by correlating global threat intelligence with local data. This allows the customer to understand the specific nature and scope of the threat, providing actionable insights to mitigate such attacks.

To prevent attacks involving malicious files such as .doc and .pdf types, the customer should enable WildFire.

WildFire: This feature analyzes files to detect and prevent zero-day threats by running the files in a virtual environment to observe their behavior. If a file is deemed malicious, WildFire generates signatures and updates the firewall to block such threats in the future. Enabling WildFire provides advanced protection against undetectable sources of malicious files.

The customer currently lacks visibility into the Layer 7 application traffic on port 53, which is typically used for DNS. Palo Alto Networks' App-ID technology can identify applications traversing the network irrespective of the port, protocol, or encryption (SSL or SSH). By using App-ID, the customer can gain visibility into the specific applications being used, even if they are running over standard ports such as 53. This capability not only identifies the applications but also allows for granular control over them, enabling the customer to block unsanctioned applications if necessary.

To enable Credential Phishing Prevention on a Palo Alto Networks firewall, three key settings must be configured:

Define an SSL Decryption Rulebase: SSL decryption is necessary to inspect encrypted traffic for credential submission attempts. Without decryption, the firewall cannot see the contents of SSL/TLS encrypted traffic.

Enable User-ID: User-ID is needed to associate traffic with specific users, which is crucial for applying user-specific security policies, including credential phishing prevention.

Define URL Filtering Profile: A URL filtering profile is used to identify and block access to phishing websites. This profile can be configured to enforce strict controls over websites that users are allowed to access, thus preventing credential submission to malicious sites.

These configurations ensure that the firewall can effectively monitor and prevent phishing attempts by inspecting traffic, associating it with users, and controlling access to potentially harmful websites.