Palo Alto Networks, a well-known service provider of enterprise network security solutions, is the company's full name. They provide a variety of items to meet the demands of various organizations. Palo Alto's product solutions include virtual and physical firewalls, the Panorama network security management platform, and the wildfire cloud-based service.

Palo Alto ensures that all potential cyberattacks are successfully averted by utilizing an automated strategy that aids in delivering consistent security across various cloud platforms. Here are some Palo Alto interview questions for both freshmen and pros. These are the most likely interview questions.

Most frequently asked Palo Alto Interview Questions What are the three strategic pillars of Palo Alto Networks? Palo Alto has how many rounds of interviews? What exactly is the Palo Alto firewall? What makes Palo Alto the best firewall? What does Palo Alto Autofocus serve? What exactly is a zone protection profile? What is the architectural style of Palo Alto? What is the zone security profile? Which port types are suggested for usage in a Palo Alto HA pair? What are the primary areas where Panorama brings value?

Palo Alto Interview Questions and Answers

Q1) Why do you want to be a part of Palo Alto?

Ans: "I want to work at Palo Alto Networks because I'm enthusiastic about cybersecurity and fascinated by the creative solutions that Palo Alto Networks provides," for example.

Q2) Is Palo Alto a nice place to work?

Ans: 586 Palo Alto Networks employees rate their leadership as A+, placing them in the top 5% of similar-sized organizations on Comparably. This includes individual evaluations of their executive team, CEO, and manager.

Q3) Is it challenging to learn Palo Alto?

Ans: It is straightforward to use. In addition to a user-friendly interface, Palo Alto allows administrators to set up and logically accomplish duties.

Q4) Palo Alto has how many rounds of interviews?

Ans: The procedure began with a resume shortlist and concluded with a one-on-one interview as the second and final rounds.

Q5) What are the three strategic pillars of Palo Alto Networks?

Ans: The three strategic pillars of Palo Alto Networks are:

• Controlling visibility and access.
• Protection against data loss.
• Threat mitigation.

Q6) What exactly is the Palo Alto firewall?

Ans: The only firewall that can identify, control, and inspect SSL-encrypted traffic and apps. Based on a stream-based threat prevention engine, the only firewall with real-time (line-rate, low-latency) content scanning to defend you against viruses, spyware, data leaks, and application vulnerabilities.

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Q7) What exactly is the goal of Palo Alto Focus?

Ans: Palo Alto Focus is one of the services available in Palo Alto for detecting major attacks and taking appropriate action without the use of additional resources. It is referred to as a cloud-based threat intelligence service.

Q8) What is a Stage 3 interview?

Ans: Third-round interviews determine whether candidates are a good fit not only for the specific function, but also for the organisation as a whole.

Q9) What makes Palo Alto the best firewall?

Ans: Palo Alto Networks provides real-time security, improved performance, and easier management. Inline deep learning capabilities from Palo Alto Networks provide industry-first prevention of evasive threats, blocking over 40% more DNS attack vectors than Fortinet or any other vendor.

Palo Alto Interview Questions for Freshers:

Q1) What are the major deployment modes in Palo Alto?

Ans: Several deployment modes have been reported in Palo Alto. The company operates in several modes based on its advantages and adaptability. Virtual wire mode, tap mode, layer two, and layer three deployment modes are among them. The various deployment modes are used to meet various security needs.

Q2) Is the Palo Alto firewall stateful?

Ans: Yes, Palo Alto's firewall is formidable. All traffic flowing through the firewall is compared to the session, and each session is compared to the security policy.

Q3) What is the distinction between virtual routers and virtual systems in Palo Alto?

Ans: Multiple firewall instances in a single network of Palo Alto physical firewalls are called logical systems in Palo Alto. Every virtual system is an independently maintained logical firewall, with its traffic kept distinct from the rest.

When other manufacturers require it, virtual routers add another dedicated virtual system to the overall system.

Q4) What does Palo Alto Autofocus serve?

Ans: Palo Alto's AutoFocus is a cloud-based threat intelligence tool that allows users to identify all significant attacks quickly. This allows the user to triage and take the necessary actions without requiring additional IT resources.

Q5) What are the various failure scenarios?

Ans: When a monitored metric on the active Panorama fails, a failover occurs. When a failover occurs, there are two critical scenarios;

The peers in the Panorama cannot communicate with one another, and the active peer is not responding to status surveys or health concerns.

One or more of the specified destinations on the active peer is unavailable.

Q6) What is a U-Turn Nat in Palo Alto?

Ans: The logical path traffic takes when accessing an internal resource after its exterior address is resolved is the U-turn NAT. The U-turn NAT is commonly used in networks where internal users must access an internal DMZ server.

Q7) Can you describe the Active/Passive and Active/Active modes in Palo Alto?

Ans: In the active/passive configuration, one firewall handles traffic while the other is prepared and synchronized to take over in the event of a failure. Both firewalls use identical settings in this configuration, and one actively manages traffic until it fails.

In the active/active mode, several firewalls create a cluster and contain multiple active units that process traffic. They share the network load and do DPI together.

Q8) What exactly is a zone protection profile?

Ans: One of the best ways to help protect the network from assaults is to use the zone protection profile. Assaults can be reconnaissance attacks, common floods, and other packet-based attacks.

Q9) What exactly is the Application Command Centre (ACC)?

Ans: Panorama's ACC, or Application Command Centre, provides users with a graphical representation of a highly interactive application. It also gives URL, threat, and data (files and patterns) passing via the Palo Alto network firewalls.

Q10) What exactly is a Waf (Web Application Firewall)?

Ans: A web application firewall, also known as a WAF, protects online applications of all types by monitoring and filtering HTTP traffic between the internet and a web application.

Q11) What do the letters Ha, Ha1, and Ha2 mean in Palo Alto?

Ans: HA stands for high availability port. A dedicated HA connection port physically connects the auxiliary and primary devices. It enables the user to group two firewalls and synchronizes their setup.

The HA1 port is utilized for both explicit text and encrypted transmission. The H2 link, on the other hand, is used to forward tables, sync sessions, IPsec security associations, and ARP tables.

Q12) What is the architectural style of Palo Alto?

Ans: Palo Alto's architectural style is recognized as the Queen Anne style. Palo Alto, a coastal Northern California city, has some beautiful examples of Queen Anne architecture erected between 1880 and 1905.

Q13) What is an App-Id, exactly?

Ans: The app ID enables users to see the accessible applications on the network and discover how they work, their behavioural features, and their relative risk. Several techniques can be used to determine the applications and application functions, including decryption, application signatures, protocol decoding, and heuristics.

Q14) How does an App-Id function?

Ans: APP ID employs several identifying approaches to determine the actual ID of the applications transiting your network. It also includes individuals who attempt to avoid detection by masquerading as legitimate communication, employing encryption, or port hopping.

Q15) What are the benefits of Palo Alto panorama?

Ans: Panorama provides consolidated, simple-to-use management capabilities that enable visibility into network traffic and simplify setups. It is a centralized management system that uses a web-based interface to control multiple Palo Alto Networks' next-generation firewalls. It enables administrators to control Palo Alto Networks firewalls and examine the device-specific or aggregate application, content, and user data.

Palo Alto Interview Questions for Professionals:

Q1) What exactly is an Application Command Center (ACC)?

Ans: The application command centre (ACC) provides visibility into traffic patterns and actionable threat intelligence from firewall network records.

Q2) In Palo Alto, which command is used to validate the firewall policy matching?

Ans: Go to test security > policy > match from trust to untrust destination in the Palo Alto web browser.

Q3) What is the zone security profile?

Ans: The zone protection profile is required if you want total protection from attacks such as floods, surveillance, and packet-based attacks.

• Flood attacks can be of the SYN, ICMP, or UDP variety, among others.
• The reconnaissance defences will assist you in protecting against port and host sweeps.
• Packet protection protects you from big ICMP and ICMP fragment assaults.

Q4) What types of security are used in Palo Alto?

Ans: Palo Alto's primary types of security are as follows:

• Floods, surveillance, and packet-based attacks are all examples of zone protection profiles.
• Network tab protection is configured as follows: Network profiles and zone protections are two examples of network tab protection.

Q5) What is the architecture of Palo Alto like?

Ans: The next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) from Palo Alto Networks are built on a single-pass parallel processing (SP3) architecture. This combines network protection with high throughput and low latency, as well as cutting-edge features and technology.

The SP3 design from Palo Alto Networks combines two key components and addresses the performance challenges plaguing today's security infrastructure. The components are as follows:

• Parallel Processing Hardware 
• Single Pass Software

As a result, high-performance networks with the optimum balance of raw throughput, transaction processing, and network security are created.

Q6) What are the advantages of Panorama in Palo Alto?

Ans: Panorama in Palo Alto offers the following advantages:

• The availability of deployment and centralized configuration system.
• There are distributed administrations that enable regulated and delegated examination of Palo Alto firewall configurations.
• It allows for logging or aggregated management for reporting and analyzing with centralized control.
• It gives us a graphical picture of the network's apps, users, and security consequences.
• It enables us to centrally examine, assess, and report on network traffic, security issues, and administrative changes.

Q7) Which virtualization platforms provide complete support for Palo Alto network deployments?

Ans: Palo Alto Networks' VM-series virtualization platform significantly aids Palo Alto Networks' deployment. It provides the following:

• Open the stack
• VMware
• ACI from Cisco
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• The ecosystem of public cloud computing
• The ecosystem of private cloud computing 16. What are the Palo Alto Firewall administrative port's default IP address, login, and password?
• The management port's default IP address in the Palo Alto firewall is 192.168.1.1. "admin" is the username. "admin" is the password.

Q8) Which port types are suggested for usage in a Palo Alto HA pair?

Ans: The following ports are recommended for use in a HA:

• HA1, HA1-A, and HA1-B - for HA control and traffic synchronisation
• Use the HA2 and HSCI (High-Speed Chassis Interconnect) ports for HA session setup traffic.
• For PA-5200 Series firewalls, AUX-1 and AUX-2 (multipurpose auxiliary ports).

Q9) What is Palo Alto Dynamic Service Chaining?

Ans: A typical security stack includes several systems, such as an NGFW, intrusion detection or prevention systems (IDS/IPS), data loss prevention, and malware analysis tools. For examination, all of these systems require access to decrypted data. SSL Orchestrator interacts seamlessly with existing security systems, centralizing SSL/TLS decryption across numerous inspection devices in the security stack. This "decrypt once and steer to multiple inspection devices" architecture overcomes the latency, complexity, and risk issues that can arise if every security device decrypts. Using the context engine, you can also establish numerous service chains for distinct traffic flows.

Q10) Why Should you Use Palo Alto Networks with Splunk?

Ans: Splunk has the unequaled ability to consume and analyze data, but for Splunk to provide useable and actionable insights, it must have the highest level of visibility and expertise possible. Palo Alto Networks provides the visibility into the network and endpoints required to detect and even predict malicious activities. When a sign of breach is identified, Palo Alto Networks and Splunk collaborate to take action and automatically resolve issues to keep the community safe.

Also, Check out our blog on Step by Step process of installing Splunk

Q11) How does one go about adding a license to the Palo Alto firewall?

Ans: Navigate to the firewall's web interface. Navigate to the device and licence, and then enable the functionality with the Auth code. Then, click the download authorization file button to obtain the authorizationfile.txt file. Then, copy this file to a computer with an internet connection and log in to the help panel.

Select the appropriate auth code from the list by clicking on my VM series auth codes. Now, select Register VM. Choose the authorization file from the pop-up menu. The serial number of the VM series firewall will be connected to the records on the support site once the registration process is completed.

Q12) What is Palo Alto's Global protection?

Ans: GlobalPortect enables businesses to protect their workforce mobility by extending all users with next-gen security systems to all users, regardless of location. Global protection safeguards traffic by leveraging the platform's capacity to comprehend application usage, associate traffic with devices and people, and enforce security regulations with next-generation policies.

Q13) What exactly is Palo Alto Content ID?

Ans: Content-ID provides a real-time threat prevention engine, a comprehensive URL database, and application identification features to: Restriction on unlawful data and file transfers. Detect and stop exploits, malware and malware communications. Control unauthorised web surfing.

Q14) What exactly is Vwire in Palo Alto?

Ans: Because engineers may monitor and manage traffic across the link, V-Wire deployment alternatives surpass the constraints of TAP mode deployment. App-ID, User-ID, Content-ID, NAT, and decryption are all supported by a Virtual Wire interface.

Q15) What are the primary areas where Panorama brings value?

Ans: The primary areas are:

• Distributed administration, which allows for local and global control and delegation of access to firewall configurations.
• Configuration and deployment are centralised.
• (Aggregated) logging with central oversight for analysis and reporting.

 

Conclusion:

In this Blog, we discussed the fundamental questions and their answers that you should expect to be asked during the interview. These questions are divided into three levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced. You may go over these types of questions. These Palo Alto Interview Questions may help prepare for and review your interview.