PCNSA Policy Evaluation and Management Practice Question
A network engineer needs to ensure that all traffic from the 'Guest' zone to the 'Internet' zone is inspected for malware, but also wants to allow high-bandwidth video conferencing traffic to bypass threat inspection for performance reasons. Which approach best achieves this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume the firewall can automatically detect and exempt video traffic from inspection without explicit rule configuration, or that a single rule with a threat profile can be configured to skip inspection for certain applications, but Palo Alto firewalls require separate rules or profile exceptions to achieve selective bypass.
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 two rules: one for general traffic with 'allow' action and a 'threat' profile, and a higher-priority rule for video conferencing traffic with 'allow' action and no threat profile.
It uses two security rules with different priorities: a higher-priority rule for video conferencing traffic with an 'allow' action and no threat profile to bypass inspection, and a lower-priority rule for general traffic with an 'allow' action and a threat profile to enforce malware inspection. This leverages the firewall's rule-ordering logic, where the first matching rule is applied, allowing selective bypass of threat inspection for specific traffic while maintaining security for other traffic.
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 two rules: one for general traffic with 'allow' action and a 'threat' profile, and a higher-priority rule for video conferencing traffic with 'allow' action and no threat profile.
Why this is correct
This allows selective bypassing of threat inspection for video traffic while inspecting the rest.
- ✗
Create a single rule with 'allow' action and no security profiles, and rely on the firewall's default behavior to inspect malware.
Why it's wrong here
Without a security profile, no threat inspection occurs at all.
- ✗
Create a single rule with 'allow' action and a 'threat' profile applied, and rely on the firewall's ability to skip inspection for video traffic automatically.
Why it's wrong here
The firewall cannot automatically skip inspection for specific application types within a single rule; it would inspect all traffic matched by the rule.
- ✗
Use policy-based forwarding to route video traffic to a separate interface that has no security profiles.
Why it's wrong here
Policy-based forwarding does not bypass security profiles; profiles are applied based on security rules, not forwarding.
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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.