PCNSE Decryption and SSL Inspection Practice Question
Exhibit
Refer to the exhibit. ``` > show ssl-decrypt statistics SSL Decryption Statistics Total sessions decrypted: 45032 Total sessions bypassed: 2341 Bypass reasons: unsupported cipher: 1200 certificate validation failure: 800 handshake failure: 341 Currently active sessions: 105 ```
Based on the exhibit, what is the most likely cause for the majority of bypassed sessions?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse 'bypassed sessions' with 'decryption failures' due to certificate issues or network problems, but bypassed sessions specifically indicate the firewall intentionally skipped decryption due to configuration mismatches like cipher or protocol version incompatibility.
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
✓
The firewall's SSL/TLS service profile does not include the cipher suites used by the clients or servers.
The majority of bypassed sessions are most likely caused by a cipher mismatch between the firewall's SSL/TLS service profile and the clients or servers. When the firewall decrypts traffic, it must negotiate a cipher suite that both the client and server support; if the service profile does not include the cipher suites used by the endpoints, the firewall cannot complete the SSL/TLS handshake and bypasses the session. This is a common misconfiguration in Palo Alto Networks firewalls where the SSL/TLS service profile's cipher list is too restrictive.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The firewall's SSL/TLS service profile does not include the cipher suites used by the clients or servers.
Why this is correct
Bypassed sessions occur when the firewall cannot negotiate the client's or server's cipher suite, so it falls back to no decryption. If the SSL/TLS service profile lacks the required cipher suites, the handshake fails and sessions are bypassed, matching the exhibit's majority-bypass symptom.
- ✗
The firewall is overloaded and cannot handle more decryption sessions.
Why it's wrong here
Resource exhaustion causes session drops or decryption failures, and the firewall would log those as errors rather than bypasses. Bypass is a policy outcome: matching traffic is excluded from inspection by design, so overload does not increment the bypassed-session counter.
- ✗
The decryption certificate is not trusted by clients.
Why it's wrong here
An untrusted decryption certificate causes browser warnings or failed forward-proxy decryption, which appear as decryption errors, not as sessions bypassing the firewall entirely. Bypass counters increment when traffic matches a no-decrypt policy or the firewall cannot process the session.
- ✗
There is a network connectivity issue between firewall and servers.
Why it's wrong here
Connectivity loss between firewall and servers would produce denied or dropped sessions, and the firewall would still create session entries for the attempted flows. Bypassed sessions are those the firewall deliberately excludes from inspection, so a reachability fault does not explain the counter.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCNSE 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 PCNSE exam.