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.

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

Exam Topics

The PCNSA exam measures your abilities in deploying, configuring, and operating the Palo Alto Networks product portfolio components, understanding the unique features of the Palo Alto Networks product portfolio, as well as understanding security and networking policies utilized by PAN-OS software. All the technical skills evaluated by the certification test are grouped into six domains that have different weights in the exam content. The specific abilities included in these topics are outlined below:

• Securing Traffic (18%)

  This subject area requires your competencies in defining and implementing the proper security profile depending on a risk scenario; defining the difference between security profile actions & security policy actions; defining how to configure security profiles depending on a network scenario; determining the firewall’s defense from protocol-based and packet- attacks; defining how the firewall can utilize the Cloud DNS database to regulate traffic on the basis of domains; finding how the firewall can utilize the PAN-DB database to regulate traffic on the basis of websites; describing how to regulate access to particular URLs with the help of custom URL filtering types.

• Simply Passing Traffic (24%)

  Within this domain, the test takers should demonstrate that they are capable of defining and customizing firewall management interfaces; defining the methods to handle firewall configurations; displaying and scheduling dynamic upgrades; customizing account administration internal & external services; designing the proper security zones depending on a network diagram; defining and customizing firewall interfaces; defining stages to design and customize a virtual router depending on a scenario; defining the function of particular security rule types; defining and customizing security policy logging options, actions, match conditions; defining and applying the appropriate NAT solution depending on a scenario.

• Deployment Optimization (4%)

  This topic covers skills in determining the advantages as well as differences between BPA and Heatmap reports.

• Palo Alto Networks Cybersecurity Portfolio Core (22%)

  This objective covers one’s skills in defining the Palo Alto Networks cybersecurity portfolio components; defining the single-pass parallel processing architecture components & operations; implementing the Zero Trust security model and explaining how it refers to traffic moving via your network; defining stages within the cyberattack lifecycle as well as firewall mitigations deterring attacks.

• Identifying Users (12%)

  In the framework of this area, the students need to prove that they are able to define the proper approach to map IP addresses to usernames depending on a scenario; define the proper User-ID agent to deploy depending on a scenario; define how the firewall maps usernames to user groups; define User-ID configuration options depending on a graphic.

• Traffic Visibility (20%)

  This section requires the individuals’ skills in selecting the proper application-based security policy regulations depending on a scenario; customizing application groups or application filters depending on a scenario; defining the function of application features as indicated in the App-ID database; searching the potential effect of App-ID upgrades on the current security policy regulations; finding the techniques to improve security policies; defining the features utilized to facilitate the creation of App-ID policy.