PCNSA Securing Traffic Practice Question
A company uses SSL Forward Proxy to decrypt all outbound HTTPS traffic. Users report significant performance degradation when accessing external web applications. Which action should the administrator take to improve performance while maintaining security?
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
✓
Create a decryption exclusion rule for financial and banking websites.
Excluding financial and banking websites from SSL decryption reduces the processing load on the firewall, alleviating performance degradation while still maintaining security for most outbound traffic. These websites typically use high-grade encryption and are trusted, so decryption is unnecessary and can cause performance issues. Option B is incorrect because increasing session timeouts does not reduce decryption processing overhead. Option C is incorrect because hardware SSL decryption offloading may not be supported on all models or may not fully address the performance impact of decrypting all traffic. Option D is incorrect because requiring only high-strength ciphers increases processing overhead, worsening performance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Create a decryption exclusion rule for financial and banking websites.
Why this is correct
Excluding high-value but sensitive categories reduces decryption load and complies with regulatory standards, thus improving performance.
- ✗
Increase the session timeout values for decrypted traffic.
Why it's wrong here
Session timeouts affect session persistence, not the CPU/memory load of decryption.
- ✗
Enable hardware SSL decryption offloading on the firewall.
Why it's wrong here
Hardware offloading may not be available on all models and doesn't address the core issue of decrypting non-essential traffic.
- ✗
Change the decryption profile to require only high-strength ciphers.
Why it's wrong here
High-strength ciphers increase processing overhead, worsening performance.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCNSA practice question is part of Courseiva's free Palo Alto Networks 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 PCNSA exam.