PCNSA Decryption and Monitoring Practice Question
A firewall is experiencing high CPU utilization due to SSL decryption. The administrator wants to reduce the load without completely disabling decryption. Which action should be taken?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse decryption mirroring with offloading decryption, not realizing that mirroring only duplicates traffic for analysis and does not reduce the firewall's decryption workload.
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 bypass for traffic to high-bandwidth sites with low security risk.
Creating a decryption bypass for traffic to high-bandwidth, low-risk sites reduces the CPU load from SSL decryption by exempting that traffic from decryption, while still allowing decryption for higher-risk traffic. This targeted approach maintains security posture without completely disabling decryption, aligning with best practices for managing decryption resources on Palo Alto Networks firewalls.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use decryption mirroring to offload decryption to a dedicated appliance.
Why it's wrong here
Decryption mirroring copies decrypted traffic to a separate appliance for inspection; the firewall still performs the decryption itself, so CPU load is unchanged. It is tempting because mirroring genuinely offloads analysis, and would be correct when a dedicated tool must inspect traffic the firewall forwards.
- ✗
Change decryption policy to 'no-decrypt' for all traffic.
Why it's wrong here
A blanket no-decrypt policy eliminates the CPU load by ceasing inspection entirely, which the administrator explicitly wants to avoid. It is tempting because it is the fastest way to cut utilisation, and would be correct only where policy forbids decrypting that traffic category.
- ✗
Enable SSL/TLS protocol settings to disable weak ciphers.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling weak ciphers narrows the cipher suite the firewall negotiates but does not reduce the volume of sessions being decrypted, so CPU utilisation persists. It is tempting because weak ciphers are a genuine security concern, and this setting is correct when hardening decryption rather than reducing load.
- ✓
Create a decryption bypass for traffic to high-bandwidth sites with low security risk.
Why this is correct
SSL decryption overloads the firewall's CPU, so bypassing high-bandwidth, low-risk destinations removes that traffic from the decryption engine entirely. This cuts processing load while decryption continues for sensitive flows, satisfying the requirement to reduce utilisation without fully disabling decryption.
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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.