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CISA Practice Question: Is planning to deploy a web application firewall…
An organization is planning to deploy a web application firewall (WAF) to protect a critical application. Which deployment mode should be used to ensure that the WAF can block malicious traffic without introducing a single point of failure?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse 'high-availability clustering' with 'active-passive clustering,' assuming both eliminate single points of failure equally, but active-passive still has a failover delay and potential traffic loss.
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
✓
Inline with high-availability clustering.
Inline with high-availability clustering ensures the WAF can actively inspect and block malicious traffic in real time while eliminating a single point of failure through automatic failover between clustered appliances. This mode maintains traffic flow even if one WAF node fails, meeting both security and availability requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Inline with high-availability clustering.
Why this is correct
Provides blocking and redundancy.
- ✗
Out-of-band monitoring only.
Why it's wrong here
Cannot block traffic.
- ✗
Transparent inline without failover.
Why it's wrong here
Single point of failure.
- ✗
Reverse proxy with active-passive clustering.
Why it's wrong here
Active-passive introduces failover delay; inline clustering is better.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA 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 CISA exam.