XDR-Engineer Planning And Installation Practice Question
An administrator is troubleshooting a Broker VM that is failing to pull updates from the Cortex XDR cloud. Upon inspecting the Broker VM system logs, the administrator notices SSL handshake errors. What is the most likely root cause?
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
✓
An intervening firewall or explicit proxy is performing SSL decryption and presenting an untrusted certificate to the Broker VM
SSL inspection or interception by an explicit proxy or next-generation firewall without proper TLS decryption certificate installation causes SSL handshake failures on the Broker VM.
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 Broker VM registration key contains invalid characters due to copy-paste formatting
Why it's wrong here
Registration key errors occur during initial registration, not when pulling periodic updates.
- ✗
The Cortex XDR management tenant license has expired due to billing cycle misalignment
Why it's wrong here
License expiration affects overall tenant access and agent registration, but does not specifically manifest as a local SSL handshake failure on the Broker VM.
- ✓
An intervening firewall or explicit proxy is performing SSL decryption and presenting an untrusted certificate to the Broker VM
Why this is correct
If an inspection device intercepts TLS traffic without the Broker VM trusting its root CA, the handshake fails.
- ✗
The Broker VM kernel version is incompatible with the Linux swap space partition size
Why it's wrong here
Swap space size does not cause SSL handshake failures.
About these practice questions
This XDR-Engineer question is part of Courseiva's 226-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official Palo Alto Networks exam blueprint
This XDR-Engineer 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 XDR-Engineer exam.