How to Earn PCNSA Certification?

To earn the Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Administrator, the students are required to pass a qualifying exam known as the PCNSA. This formal exam targeting the intermediate-level PCNSA certification can be taken by anyone who has already taken EDU-110 or EDU-210 courses and who wants to become a security administrator dealing with Palo Alto Network security features. This test is based on the latest release of the PAN-OS. Before taking the PCNSA exam, it is recommended that the learners have between two and three years of experience in the networking or security domain or six months of full-time work experience in the Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform.

What Areas PCNSA Assesses You on?

There are six different domains covered under this certification exam. These areas and their details are as follows:

• Securing Traffic

  This objective covers risk scenarios and how the appropriate profile can be applied. Included here are threat logs, security profiles, and customization for antivirus, anti-spyware, vulnerability protection, URL filtering, and file blocking. Also, there is a safe search and HTTP header logging. The next part is about firewall protection against packet & protocol attacks. Included within this topic are protections like Denial-of-Service, zone, flood attack, SYN cookies, UDP, ICMP, reconnaissance attack, packet-based attack, etc. What comes after is how cloud DNS security can be used by the firewall in controlling domains based on traffic and how the PAN-DB database can be used by the firewall for controlling websites based on traffic. At last, in this section, candidates will get equipped with the knowledge of URL filtering components and how to monitor access to them.

• Simply Passing Traffic

  To start is the subsection on identifying and configuring management interfaces for the firewall. It covers access to the firewalls for Palo Alto Networks, steps to gaining access to firewall, methods for managing firewall, services for firewall, etc. Managing firewall features is next with a focus on configurations for candidates, running, last saved, saved name configuration snapshot, export and import device states, and more. There is also configuring internal as well as external services targeting account administration, administrative roles, authentication sequence, configuration logs, etc. What follows further is the domain of firewall interfaces that include Ethernet, Virtual, Layer 2, Tap, Layer 3, and aggregate. Some parts cover security zones and virtual routers while others focus on the function of specific types of security, followed by identifying and configuring conditions, logging options, security policies. Also, implicit in addition to explicit rules and security rule hit count are to be covered by the PCNSA test. Finally, are the matters of NAT solution implementation covering NAT types, configuring source NAT, and more.

• Deployment Optimization

  This topic engages the advantages as well as differences occurring between the PBA reports and Heatmap. In particular, it includes the Heatmap component that analyzes the deployment of Palo Alto Networks and filters the data by making use of various group devices. To know more, this area also covers the feature section for Zone mapping, which helps you identify the best traffic to use by choosing the appropriate zone.

• Identifying Users

  The PCNSA exam also looks at user identification and maps different IP addresses for them. Additionally, it considers controlling access to particular URLs by utilizing custom filtering categories for URL and identifying the proper user ID agent to be deployed. Also, it connects to how the mapping of firewalls to user groups is done and the ID configuration options for users.

• Palo Alto Networks Cybersecurity Portfolio Core

  First, this topic is concerned with identifying the components alongside operations targeting the architecture of Single-Pass Parallel Processing. In addition, candidates will learn more about Strata Security for organizations, Prismas Security for the Cloud, and Cortex Security Operational procedures. The next area to be covered here is centered on the stages of the lifecycle of a cyberattack as well as the firewall mitigations which are capable of preventing attacks. To finalize, this domain describes the Zero Trust model as well as traffic moving via networks.

• Traffic Visibility

  Traffic visibility concerns rules for security and this covers application shifts, dependent applications, and implicit applications as well as determining them. Such a topic is also about application filters or groups, application characteristics, properties, timeouts, and tools for optimizing security policies. The last part concerns features for streamlining policy creation for App-ID such as application tags and dependencies and explicit app dependency resolution targeting workflows.

Prerequisites

There are no formal requirements set for this certification. However, it is recommended that the candidates complete the relevant training, including the Firewall Essentials: Configuration and Management (EDU-210) course before attempting the prerequisite test. In addition, they must have at least two years of working experience in the security or networking spheres and six months of experience operating with the Palo Alto Networks product portfolio. They also need to have a minimum of six months of experience in deploying and configuring Palo Alto Networks NGFW.

Palo Alto Networks PCNSA Practice Test Questions, Palo Alto Networks PCNSA Exam Practice Test Questions

The PCNSA: Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Administrator certification is designed to validate the professionals’ knowledge and skills in designing, installing configuring, and maintaining the majority of implementations on the Palo Alto Networks platform. Obtaining this certificate confirms that an individual has the requisite expertise to apply the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall PAN-OS 10.0 platform in various environments.

Reference: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/services/education/certification#pcnsa