SSE-Engineer Palo Alto Networks Security Service Edge Engineer Questions and Answers

When onboarding a new branch office to anexisting IPSec termination nodeinPrisma Access, theQoS bandwidth is not automatically assigned. Instead, the newly added branchremains unallocateduntil the administratormanually assigns bandwidthwithin theQoS configuration settings. This ensures thatcustomized bandwidth per siteremains intact and allows forfine-tuned traffic managementbased on business needs.

After successfully creating aSAML authentication type and authentication profileinCloud Identity Engine, the next step is toconfigure a corresponding SAML authentication profile in Strata Cloud Managerand link it to theCloud Identity Engine profile. This ensures thatPrisma Access (Managed by Strata Cloud Manager)can authenticate mobile users using the configured SAML identity provider (IdP), enabling seamless user authentication and access control.

When the "Overlapping Subnets" checkbox is selected during the Remote Network onboarding process in Prisma Access, the deployment enables Private Application access using Prisma Access for Users(ZTNA or Private Access). This feature is designed to handle scenarios where multiple sites use the same IP subnet by leveraging NAT (Network Address Translation) and segmentation to avoid conflicts.

Since overlapping subnets can create routing challenges for direct remote network-to-remote network communication, Prisma Access does not support Remote Network-to-Remote Network or Mobile User communication in this case. Private application access is supported as Prisma Access correctly routes requests based on application-layer intelligence rather than IP-based routing.

InPrisma Access, security policies are evaluated based on theirconfiguration scope. If the engineer configured aSecurity policyunder theRemote Networks scope, but traffic from the branch locations is instead matching aSecurity policy under the Prisma Access configuration scope, the intended policy will not take effect. This happens becausePrisma Access evaluates security rules based on the highest-level applicable configuration first, which can override more specific Remote Networks policies.

Strata Copilotenhances the capabilities ofPrisma Access security teamsby providingAI-powered insights and recommendationsto help resolve security issues efficiently. It analyzessecurity events, misconfigurations, and alertsand offerscontextual guidancewithrecommended next stepsfor troubleshooting and improving security posture. This assists teams inquickly identifying and addressing security challengeswithout requiring deep manual investigation.

To enable App Acceleration for SaaS applications in Prisma Access, the following configurations must be enabled:

Trusted Root CA for the CA certificate ensures that Prisma Access can validate and trust the SaaS application's certificates, allowing seamless inspection and acceleration of traffic without security warnings.

Forward Trust Certificate for the CA certificate enables SSL decryption for SaaS applications, allowing Prisma Access to optimize traffic and apply acceleration techniques while maintaining security policies.

Updating theCloud Services plugininPrisma Accessdoes not disrupt existing traffic flows because the upgrade process is designed to beseamless and transparent. Prisma Access ensures high availability by maintainingactive sessions and policieswhile applying the update in the background. This allows ongoing connections to continue without interruptions, minimizing impact on user experience.

Palo Alto Networks best practices and the behavior of Strata Cloud Manager (SCM) dictate thatpredefined or default objects, including profile groups like "Default Prisma Profile," cannot be directly modified.These default objects serve as baseline configurations and are often locked to prevent accidental or unintended changes that could impact the overall security posture.

The intern's experience of the options being greyed out when selecting "Default Prisma Profile" is a direct indication of this immutability of default objects.

Therefore, the correct action is to:

Create a new Profile Group:The intern should create a new profile group within the appropriate configuration scope (likely GlobalProtect, given the task).

Configure the new Profile Group:In this new profile group, the intern can select the desired Anti-Spyware Profile (which might be an existing custom profile or a new one they create).

Modify Security Rules:The security rules currently using the "Default Prisma Profile" in the GlobalProtect folder need to be modified to use this newly created profile group.

Let's analyze why the other options are incorrect based on official documentation:

A. Request edit access for the GlobalProtect scope.While having the correct scope permissions is necessary for makinganychanges within GlobalProtect, it will not override the inherent immutability of default objects like "Default Prisma Profile." Edit access will allow the intern to create new objects and modify rules, but not directly edit the default profile group.

B. Change the configuration scope to Prisma Access and modify the profile group.The image shows that "Default Prisma Profile" has a "Location" of "Prisma Access." However, even within the Prisma Access scope, default profile groups are generally not directly editable. The issue is not the scope but the fact that it's a default object.

D. Modify the existing anti-spyware profile, because best-practice profiles cannot be removed from a group.The question is about changing theprofile group, not the individual Anti-Spyware Profile. While "best-practice" profiles might be part of default groups, the core issue is the inability to modify thedefault groupitself. Creating a new group allows the intern to choose which Anti-Spyware Profile to include.

In summary, the fundamental principle in Palo Alto Networks management is that default objects are typically read-only to ensure a consistent and predictable baseline. To make changes, you need to create custom objects.

By usingsecurity checks under posture settingsinStrata Cloud Manager (SCM), the senior engineer can enforcepolicy compliance standardsbyautomatically denyingany security policy that does notalign with best practices. This ensures that junior engineers can create policies while preventing configurations that might introduce security gaps. This proactive approacheliminates manual oversightand enforces compliance at the time of policy creation, reducing risk and ensuring consistent security enforcement.

AZTNA Connectorrequires astable and direct connectionto thecloud gateway. When the connector is deployed behind adouble NAT (Network Address Translation), it can cause issues withreachability and session establishmentbecause the cloud gateway may not be able to properly identify and communicate with the connector. Double NAT can interfere withsecure tunneling, IP address resolution, and authentication mechanisms, leading toconnection failures. To resolve this, the connector should be placed in a network segment witha single NAT or a public IP assignment.

In Prisma Access's default routing mode, the service connections establish BGP sessions with the customer premises equipment (CPE) in the data centers. To ensure traffic destined for mobile users in a specific region (e.g., North America) traverses the service connection in that same region, you need to control the route advertisements.

Filtering out the mobile user pool prefixes from the other region on each service connection achieves this by:

Preventing the data center in one region from learning the specific mobile user prefixes of the other region.For example, the North American service connection would filter out the mobile user pool prefixes allocated to European users.

Ensuring that when a data center needs to send traffic to a mobile user, it will only see and use the route advertised by the service connection in the appropriate geographical region.This forces the traffic to enter the Prisma Access infrastructure through the intended regional service connection.

Let's analyze why the other options are incorrect based on official documentation regarding default routing mode:

A. Configure BGP on the customer premises equipment (CPE) to prefer the assigned community string attribute on the mobile user prefixes in its respective Prisma Access region.While BGP communities can be used for influencing routing decisions, in the context ofdefault routing modeand ensuring regional traffic flow, relying solely on the CPE to prefer community strings might not be the most robust or direct method to guarantee traffic traverses the correct regional service connection. The service connection itself needs to control the advertisement of prefixes.

C. Configure BGP on the customer premises equipment (CPE) to prefer the MED attribute on the mobile user prefixes in its respective Prisma Access region.The BGP MED (Multi-Exit Discriminator) attribute is primarily used to influence the path selectionbetweenautonomous systems (AS) or within the same AS at different entry points. In this scenario, where serviceconnections are advertising prefixes, filtering at the source (service connection) is a more direct and reliable way to ensure regional traffic flow than relying on the MED attribute on the CPE.

D. Configure each service connection to prepend the BGP ASN five times for mobile user pool prefixes originating from the other region.BGP AS path prepending is a mechanism to make a path less desirable. While this could influence routing, it doesn't guarantee that traffic will always take the intended regional path. Filtering provides a more definitive control over which routes are advertised and learned.

Therefore, configuring each service connection to filter out the mobile user pool prefixes from the other region in the advertisements to the data center is the verified method to ensure traffic destined for mobile users traverses the service connection in the appropriate region when using Prisma Access in default routing mode.

ForGlobalProtect with pre-logon, certificates must beinstalled in the Machine Certificate Storeto ensure that authentication occursbefore user login. This allows the GlobalProtect client to establish aVPN connection before the user logs in, enabling access to corporate resources such as domain controllers and authentication services. Usingmachine certificatesensures secure authentication and eliminates dependency on user credentials at the pre-logon stage.