https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/wsa/wsa11-7/user_guide/b_WSA_UserGuide_11_7/b_WSA_UserGuide_11_7_chapter_01011.html

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/web-security-appliance/118005-configure- ntlm-00.html

An IP subnet can be used as a membership criterion to identify traffic that should be exempted from authentication. This allows selected network ranges, such as trusted internal systems or devices that cannot authenticate, to bypass user authentication on Cisco Secure Web Appliance.

Certificate validation ensures encrypted connections are established with legitimate websites rather than attackers using forged certificates, helping prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and protecting users from fraudulent destinations.

Group Policy Object deployment is the most secure and manageable way to distribute a PAC file in a domain environment because it centrally enforces the proxy configuration on managed clients without relying on user-controlled settings.