An XSIAM customer is deploying Cortex XDR agents in a highly regulated environment that mandates the use of FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography for all security-related communications. When planning the communication requirements for Cortex XDR agents reporting to the XSIAM tenant, which aspect of the communication channel must be specifically considered to meet this FIPS compliance?
Correct Answer: B
For FIPS 140-2 compliance, the cryptographic modules used by the software must be FIPS-validated. Cortex XDR agents, like many applications, often leverage the underlying operating system's cryptographic libraries. Therefore, to ensure FIPS compliance for agent communication, the operating system itself must be configured in FIPS mode, which activates FIPS-validated cryptographic modules. Option A is about firewall rules, not cryptography. Option C is about data storage, not communication. Option D is generally not required for standard agent operation. Option E suggests using outdated and insecure algorithms, which would violate security best practices and FIPS requirements.
XSIAM-Engineer Exam Question 47
An organization is migrating from a legacy EDR solution to Cortex XSIAM. During the planning phase, it's determined that several thousand endpoints are running older operating systems (e.g., Windows Server 2012 R2, CentOS 7) that are still critical but reaching end-of-life. What is the most significant consideration regarding XSIAM agent compatibility and support for these systems, and what strategic recommendation should the engineer provide?
Correct Answer: B
Option B is the most accurate. While Cortex XSIAM generally supports a wide range of OS versions, older operating systems, especially those approaching or past their end-of-life (like Windows Server 2012 R2 and CentOS 7), typically have limited or deprecated support. This often means they can only run specific, older agent versions that might not receive the latest features, bug fixes, or security updates. Continuous support for such legacy systems is not guaranteed, and eventually, support will cease. Therefore, the strategic recommendation must be to plan for OS upgrades or retirement of these systems in conjunction with the XSIAM deployment to ensure comprehensive and future-proof security coverage. Option A is incorrect; agent support has lifecycles. Option C is too extreme; some older versions are supported, albeit with limitations. Option D focuses on performance only, not the underlying support issue. Option E is incorrect; kernel modules are OS and kernel version specific, and Windows Server 2012 R2 has explicit support lifecycles.
XSIAM-Engineer Exam Question 48
A financial institution is deploying XSIAM and intends to automate its privileged access management (PAM) integration. Specifically, when a critical XSIAM alert indicates potential compromise of a privileged account, the workflow should automatically initiate a password rotation for that account via their Delinea Secret Server PAM solution. The critical challenge is securely authenticating XSIAM to the Delinea API without hardcoding credentials in playbooks. Which secure integration method should be prioritized?
Correct Answer: B
Securely managing credentials for API integrations is paramount. Storing sensitive API keys directly in playbooks (A) or passing them as plaintext parameters (C) is a severe security risk. IP whitelisting alone (D) offers some protection but doesn't authenticate the client application. Manual input (E) negates automation. The most secure and scalable approach is to use a dedicated XSIAM 'App' or 'Connection' configured to retrieve the API token from a secure secret management solution (like HashiCorp Vault, Azure Key Vault, or AWS Secrets Manager) via an XSIAM connector. This ensures that the credentials are not hardcoded, are centrally managed, and can be rotated easily.
XSIAM-Engineer Exam Question 49
A global financial institution is evaluating hardware for a Palo Alto Networks XSIAM deployment. Their compliance regulations mandate that all security logs must be immutable and stored on Write Once, Read Many (WORM) compliant storage for a minimum of 7 years. Additionally, the institution processes a high volume of sensitive transactions, leading to an average of 500 GB/day of audit logs, with bursts up to 2 TB/day during month-end closes. How would these requirements specifically influence the hardware selection for XSIAM's data storage component?
Correct Answer: B
The core challenge here is balancing performance (for daily ingestion and queries) with long-term WORM compliance. XSIAM's active data (hot/warm) requires high performance, making NVMe SSDs ideal (B). However, WORM compliance for 7 years typically applies to archival or cold data. Standard versioning in cloud storage (E) doesn't inherently meet strict WORM compliance. Storing all data, including hot, on WORM hardware appliances (C) would severely degrade performance for real-time operations. Traditional spinning disks (A) are too slow for the ingestion rates and query demands. While cloud elasticity (D) is beneficial, on-premises deployments can handle bursts with proper planning. The optimal approach (B) is to use high-performance storage for active data and then offload cold data to dedicated WORM-compliant solutions designed for long-term immutable storage.
XSIAM-Engineer Exam Question 50
An XSIAM engineer is reviewing an existing detection rule designed to identify potential brute-force attacks. The current rule generates an alert when more than 5 failed login attempts occur within a 60-second window from a single source IP. However, the SOC wants to differentiate between brute-force attempts targeting standard user accounts and those targeting highly privileged accounts (e.g., 'administrator', 'root'). How can the XSIAM engineer modify the existing content and scoring logic to reflect this requirement?
Correct Answer: C
Option C is the most effective and scalable solution for content optimization through scoring. By using a scoring rule, the engineer can dynamically adjust the alert's score based on the context (privileged account target) without duplicating detection rules or making them overly complex. This ensures that the base detection logic remains clean while criticality is assigned post-detection. Options A and B involve duplicating or overly complicating detection rules. Option D changes the detection logic globally. Option E addresses post-alert handling, not the initial scoring.
