NSE7 Advanced Threat Protection Practice Question
An administrator is troubleshooting why a custom IPS signature for protocol anomaly detection is not triggering. The signature is designed to detect abnormal DNS query lengths. Which TWO steps should the administrator take to verify the signature is working? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to assume a custom signature will automatically be evaluated once created, but FortiGate requires explicit policy attachment for any IPS sensor to process traffic, and rebooting or changing severity settings cannot compensate for a missing policy binding.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Verify that the IPS sensor containing the signature is applied to the correct firewall policy
An IPS sensor must be explicitly applied to a firewall policy for the signatures it contains to be evaluated against traffic passing through that policy. Without this binding, the custom signature for DNS protocol anomaly detection will never be inspected, regardless of its configuration or the traffic type.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reboot the FortiGate to reset the IPS engine
Why it's wrong here
Rebooting is unnecessary and disruptive.
- ✗
Disable the firewall policy to see if the signature triggers
Why it's wrong here
Disabling the policy would block traffic, not help verification.
- ✓
Verify that the IPS sensor containing the signature is applied to the correct firewall policy
Why this is correct
If the sensor is not applied, the signature will not inspect traffic.
- ✓
Generate traffic that matches the signature and check the IPS logs for alerts
Why this is correct
Matching traffic should generate an alert in the IPS log.
- ✗
Increase the signature's severity to see it in logs
Why it's wrong here
Severity does not affect logging; all alerts are logged.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This NSE7 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Fortinet certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the NSE7 exam.