NO.17 An organization wants to modernize its legacy branch architecture. The existing architecture is rigid, complex, and ill-suited for a cloud-first strategy, creating high operational costs and latency.
– The four core data centers are strategically located in Dallas, Toronto, London and Tokyo, and they are interconnected by a dedicated MPLS backbone providing reliable connectivity but incurring significant costs and offering limited bandwidth scalability.
– Branches rely on MPLS or site-to-site VPN to connect to the nearest geographical data center.
– All internet-bound traffic from the branches is backhauled to the data center egress firewalls.
This creates latency for SaaS applications and increases bandwidth strain on the MPLS links.
What is the primary security posture enhancement that can be achieved in this use case by offloading data center backhaul to a PAN-OS SD-WAN model with local internet breakout for SaaS traffic?

NO.18 A multinational organization has a large worldwide remote user base. This user base consists of several persona types with distinct requirements and concerns regarding the adoption of a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solution.
– Developers have a requirement to temporarily bypass security controls for business purposes, but the security team sees this as a potential risk. The developers commonly access development servers onsite in private data centers and public cloud. These development applications use web (HTTP/HTTPS), API, RPC, and SMB-based applications.
– Sales staff travel regularly and connect to the network via many different types of connections, but they are generally limited to SaaS-based web applications. They often complain about performance when any agent is installed and want the ability to temporarily disable these agents.
Data exfiltration and insider risk have been identified as the primary threats for this class of user.
– Executives have concerns about being high-value targets. Security must be consistent across the multiple endpoint types, including mobile and desktop devices. The executive team members have indicated that their primary objective is to ensure that the solution is responsive and easy to troubleshoot.
Which statement applies in the context of securing the developers’ applications?

NO.19 An organization is designing the Prisma Access service connections for its data centers. Each data center has 10 Gb redundant links to the internet. Each data center will need to support a minimum of 1.5 Gbps of throughput from Prisma Access connected users and branches. Which diagram depicts a solution that meets the requirements of this use case?

NO.20 A global manufacturing organization with 50,000 employees spanning 35 countries designs advanced industrial equipment and owns significant intellectual property. The organization operates in a highly competitive market where protecting trade secrets is critical to maintaining market advantage.
Over the past 18 months, the CISO discovered that employees across the organization have adopted hundreds of GenAI applications to improve productivity. Engineers use AI coding assistants to accelerate product development sales teams use AI tools to generate proposals, and customer service representatives use chatbots to draft responses. While this adoption has driven innovation, it has also created significant security risks.
A security audit reveals sensitive CAD files uploaded to image-generation services, proprietary source code shared with public coding assistants, and confidential customer information used in prompts. The audit identifies over 300 different GenAI applications in use, most of which had not been formally reviewed or approved.
The customer service department has also been developing internal AI applications, including a customer service copilot built on a cloud large language model (LLM) platform, an internal knowledge management assistant, and a code review tool. These internal applications access sensitive databases, customer records and internal APIs – creating additional security concerns about exploitation or misuse.
The organization has a distributed workforce in which 60% of employees work remotely or in hybrid arrangements, accessing corporate resources and AI applications from various locations using managed and unmanaged devices. Existing network security infrastructure lacks AI-specific security capabilities.
Organization leadership wants to enable AI-driven innovation while implementing comprehensive security controls. The CISO has been tasked with developing an organization-wide GenAI governance program that protects sensitive assets without hindering productivity. The program must address both external AI applications employees are using and internal AI applications being developed by IT.
Which enforcement solution can the CISO recommend to control GenAI data exfiltration?

NO.21 You need to ensure compliance reporting and audit visibility for firewall activities. What should you use?

NO.22 A company needs DNS-based threat protection to block malicious domains. Which solution is appropriate?

NO.23 An IoT sensor should be deployed in the path between the IoT device and which infrastructure component for comprehensive profiling coverage?

NO.24 A global organization plans to implement a full Zero Trust network solution to evolve its security architecture and is deciding between SASE and traditional firewall edge solutions. The organization currently has a WAN solution with all traffic backhauled to a central set of data centers and requires that branch-to-branch traffic be permitted for all 721 branch locations. What is a crucial consideration as the solutions architect plans the end architecture for this organization?

NO.25 An organization wants to detect and prevent unknown malware. Which Palo Alto feature should be implemented?

NO.26 A global organization has fully adopted Prisma Access to provide security for its mobile workforce and remote offices, and user identity is managed in Okta. The security team wants to create consistent Security policies that grant access to specific SaaS applications based on a users’ departments, regardless of whether they work from home or a from branch office connected via an SD-WAN device. Which architecture ensures that consistent user-to-group mapping is available to Prisma Access for policy enforcement in this use case?

NO.27 A global organization is modernizing its data center and private cloud infrastructure. The environment consists of:
– A Nutanix AHV cluster hosting critical east-west application workloads
– A VMware ESXi cluster with multi-socket hosts, supporting high-throughput workloads (>10 Gbps)
– A new pair of PA-5450 firewalls to secure the perimeter and handle encrypted traffic inspection at scale
– Strict performance service-level agreements (SLAs) for both north-south and east-west flows, with heavy reliance on TLS 1.3 and IPSec
– A Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) environment on KVM to provide high-performance security services to maximize packet throughput and minimize latency The chief architect is tasked with ensuring that the firewall design avoids hypervisor contention optimizes non-uniform memory access (NUMA) and uses hardware features for encrypted traffic.
VM-Series on Nutanix AHV – Resource Allocation
– Because the Nutanix cluster is already heavily used, the architect’s main concern is preventing performance degradation of the virtual firewall. Thin provisioning or ballooning could introduce latency and unpredictability which is unacceptable for a security-sensitive workload.
VM-Series on VMware ESXi – NUMA and vCPU Placement
– In the VMware ESXi environment, the architect is deploying VM-Series for workloads pushing >10 Gbps. Assigning vCPUs across NUMA nodes or oversubscribing cores would create latency due to cross-socket memory access and scheduling delays. Similarly, dedicating logical hypethreads does not provide the deterministic data plane performance required.
Operational Integration and High Availability
– With performance guaranteed by correct hypervisor and hardware provisioning, the architect also considers high availability (HA). VM-Series pairs are deployed in active/passive HA across Nutanix and VMware clusters, while PA-5450s form the data center’s north-south secure perimeter deployment. This ensures resilience without introducing unnecessary east-west inspection bottlenecks.
– The recommendation must be a scalable, high-performance firewall deployment aligned with enterprise SLAs and the CISO’s encrypted traffic concerns.
To optimize throughput and minimize latency, what is recommended to configure the vCPUs and NUMA for this deployment?

NO.28 An organization is in the process of building a network infrastructure that is cloud first. Part of the revised architecture includes Prisma Access as demonstrated in the diagram below. The organization has selected Strata Cloud Manager (SCM) as the management method for Prisma Access and NGFWs deployed at the data center and in public cloud environments. There are 150 NGFWs in place that are used to terminate service connections and segment networks as well as to secure the data center and public cloud resources.

One of the resilience requirements is to provide highly available directory services and authentication for the NGFW and Prisma Access deployment.
The organization wants to be able to track Prisma Access users on the on-premises firewalls and remote networks.
Which configuration meets the design and organization requirements?

NO.29 A global manufacturing organization has a strategic plan for rapid growth through mergers and acquisitions Several components the organization has purchased are deemed large deployments with existing IP address schemas and allocations that conflict with the parent organization. The manufacturing organization needs access to the resources before a re-IP initiative can be completed.
All of the deployments include a variety of IoT devices Leadership requires protection of vulnerable assets and identification of any known CVEs associated with the IoT devices. The governance, risk and compliance (GRC) team requires comprehensive non-repudiable logs to identify all IoT devices reporting “Critical (9 0+) CVE scores” for mandatory remediation.
Throughput needs to exceed the current 1 Gbps trending rate, and with expected growth will soon scale to 5 Gbps.
Segmentation is a mandatory requirement with enclaves based on region, device type, and function.
In which two ways should the organization architect for isolation of IoT with groupings based on the device types? (Choose two.)

NO.30 An enterprise needs to identify users accessing applications without relying on IP addresses.
Which feature should be used?

NO.31 The network security architect leading a Zero Trust migration has successfully completed identifying and classifying all mission-critical Data, Applications, Assets, and Services (DAAS).
The architect must now gather the necessary data to inform the technical design of the micro- perimeters and the placement of the VM-Series virtual firewalls in Azure. According to the Palo Alto Networks Zero Trust implementation methodology, what is the mandatory next step to gather the necessary data for designing the segmentation and the placement of security controls?

NO.32 A global manufacturing organization has a strategic plan for rapid growth through mergers and acquisitions Several components the organization has purchased are deemed large deployments with existing IP address schemas and allocations that conflict with the parent organization. The manufacturing organization needs access to the resources before a re-IP initiative can be completed.
All of the deployments include a variety of IoT devices Leadership requires protection of vulnerable assets and identification of any known CVEs associated with the IoT devices. The governance, risk and compliance (GRC) team requires comprehensive non-repudiable logs to identify all IoT devices reporting “Critical (9 0+) CVE scores” for mandatory remediation.
Throughput needs to exceed the current 1 Gbps trending rate, and with expected growth will soon scale to 5 Gbps.
Segmentation is a mandatory requirement with enclaves based on region, device type, and function.
Which off-ramp should an architect recommend to meet the requirements of the organization?

NO.33 An organization wants to reduce attack surface by allowing only sanctioned applications while blocking unknown traffic. What is the BEST approach?

NO.34 A company requires segmentation between development, testing, and production environments.
What is the BEST design?

NO.35 An organization has selected Prisma SD-WAN ION devices for use at branch offices and is working to build a low-level design for its sites. A typical branch site has a 10 Mbps MPLS with fiber LC-SR, and an RJ-45 Ethernet 50 Mbps DIA internet circuit.
There are 75 workstations and a stacked core switch that supports LACP, M-LAG, BGP, and OSPF will be used. The core switch is the default gateway for all local VLANs. The final design will determine the selection of the appropriate model and accessories for the site.
Which statement applies to the Prisma SD-WAN architecture in this use case?

NO.36 A global organization is in the process of securing critical applications during a cloud-based migration while migrating to a cloud-first design, and it is currently performing a brownfield migration of its most critical applications – such as CRM and product intellectual property / design systems – into Azure Cloud. The organization already has an active/passive high availability (HA) NGFW deployed at its data center with multiple zones and has replicated that design into its existing Azure HA deployment.
The organization recognizes the need to modernize its security posture as critical workloads move out of the data center and users connect from anywhere. Its security model is defined by a traditional “hard shell, soft center” approach:
Zero Trust Gaps
– Current network segmentation is perimeter-based. The organization wants to expand Zero Trust principles across cloud and on-premises environments.
– The network relies heavily on VLANs and IP address-based Access Control Lists (ACLs) segmented primarily by office location and broad departmental groups.
– Once employees are on the corporate network (i.e., inside the “perimeter”), they have relatively wide access.
– If attackers compromise a single endpoint (e.g., via a phishing email), they can easily move laterally and scan for high-value targets.
Cloud Blind Spots
– The organization uses Azure for its production environments and hosts applications that contain sensitive customer data.
– Security controls in the cloud are often managed independently of the on-premises network.
Access is frequently granted with overly permissive identity and access management (IAM) roles and keys based on the resource rather than the user’s real-time context or application health.
Remote User Access
– Many remote users are still hairpinning into the corporate data center just to reach internet or SaaS resources, creating latency and inefficiency.
– Traditional VPN is used for remote employees.
– The VPN grants access to the entire internal network segment making the remote endpoint the new, weaker perimeter. There is no continuous check on the user’s device health after the initial connection.
Visibility and Logging
– Logs are primarily stored on-premises, then forwarded to a local Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution. As applications move to Azure, visibility into cloud traffic and user behavior becomes fragmented.
Data Security Concern
– Sensitive data, including product design files, will now live in SaaS and cloud environments. The organization needs data security to prevent leakage and enforce compliance.
Ingress Security
– Third-party partners and suppliers require access into the data center and cloud applications, introducing risk at ingress points.
The current Microsoft Azure NGFW architecture will not support the increased traffic with the new applications being migrated.
Which architectural solution will provide scalable inspection?

NO.37 An organization has a directive to adopt a Zero Trust framework focused on using identity and role-based access groups, device security and content inspection across all Security policies. To achieve this goal, an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) was purchased, including Advanced Threat Prevention, IoT Security, and GlobalProtect.
The current security architecture uses Panorama to manage 60 NGFWs – a mix of PA-3240, PA-1410, and PA-440. Sites with PA-3240s host private application resources in the trust data center zone All sites have an untrust zone for internet access and a users zone for managed and unmanaged endpoint devices. A transit mesh zone exists to establish site-to-site connectivity through PAN-OS SD-WAN.
Privately hosted applications include web servers, SMB and NFS file servers and hosted Active Directory. The organization is in the process of adopting group mapping restrictions to these private applications, with daily additions of groups. It is also planning to build AI applications to assist the data teams with complex queries that will be hosted in the large offices containing data centers and is exploring hosting in the public cloud.
The organization uses on-premises Exchange, Dropbox, Zoom, and ChatGPT. There are a number of shadow SaaS applications that require further investigation. Users have been using Google Drive to upload confidential files within the organization by using their personal logins.
IoT devices on the network are associated on their own VLAN on the users zone. Using Device Security, all IoT devices have been categorized by asset profiles with medium or high confidence, policy sets imported into Panorama, and a default deny applied to the IoT networks.
The organization has rolled out SSL decryption and is using URL categorization for the majority of content filtering. Malicious categories, unknown and high-risk websites are blocked, with the remainder of sites set to alert.
Which action should the architect recommend to restrict the confidential file exfiltration present in the organization’s environment using existing technology?