Pass the Fortinet Fortinet Network Security Expert NSE7_SSE_AD-25 Questions and answers with CertsForce

To enable the Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) feature on FortiSASE, the administrative framework must be established outside of the local SASE instance within the broader FortiCloud ecosystem.

FortiCloud IAM Integration: The FortiSASE MSSP portal relies on FortiCloud Identity & Access Management (IAM) to define the scope of management for internal teams. Administrators do not create local "MSSP users" within the SASE portal itself; instead, they must use the FortiCloud IAM portal to assign specific Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to IAM users.

Permissions and Scope: These RBAC settings determine which customer tenants (Organizational Units or OUs) an MSSP administrator can view, configure, or monitor. Without the proper role assignment in the IAM portal, the MSSP portal and its multi-tenant viewing capabilities will not be accessible to the user, even if the account has the necessary licenses.

Hierarchical Management: Once RBAC is correctly assigned, the MSSP administrator can leverage the FortiCloud Organizations service to manage multiple customer accounts from a single pane of glass. This centralized approach ensures that security policies and configurations can be standardized across the entire customer base while maintaining strict data isolation between tenants.

According to the FortiSASE 25 Multitenant Deployment Guide, configuring the IAM portal is the primary prerequisite that grants an MSSP internal team the permissions necessary to perform operations on customer FortiSASE tenants.

Based on the provided exhibits, the reason why the Win7-Pro endpoint can no longer access the internet through FortiSASE is due to exceeding the total vulnerability detected threshold. This threshold is used to determine if a device is compliant with the security requirements to access the network.

Endpoint Compliance:

FortiSASE monitors endpoint compliance by assessing various security parameters, including the number of vulnerabilities detected on the device.

The compliance status is indicated by the ZTNA tags and the vulnerabilities detected.

Vulnerability Threshold:

The exhibit shows that Win7-Pro has 176 vulnerabilities detected, whereas Win10-Pro has 140 vulnerabilities.

If the endpoint exceeds a predefined vulnerability threshold, it may be restricted from accessing the network to ensure overall network security.

Impact on Network Access:

Since Win7-Pro has exceeded the vulnerability threshold, it is marked as non-compliant and subsequently loses internet access through FortiSASE.

The FortiSASE endpoint profile enforces this compliance check to prevent potentially vulnerable devices from accessing the internet.

In the user connection monitor, the random characters shown for the username indicate that log anonymization is enabled. Log anonymization is a feature that hides the actual user information in the logs for privacy and security reasons. To display proper user information, you need to disable log anonymization.

Log Anonymization:

When log anonymization is turned on, the actual usernames are replaced with random characters to protect user privacy.

This feature can be beneficial in certain environments but can cause issues when detailed user monitoring is required.

Disabling Log Anonymization:

Navigate to the FortiSASE settings.

Locate the log settings section.

Disable the log anonymization feature to ensure that actual usernames are displayed in the logs and user connection monitors.

In a FortiSASE environment, log management is governed by a cloud-native storage policy that prioritizes performance and resource availability.

Retention Policy Framework: All FortiSASE instances come with log retention enabled by default. The standard log retention period is 30 days, though administrators can customize this policy to any duration between 2 and 30 days. This policy applies across all log types, including traffic, security, and event logs.

Automatic Deletion (A): When logs exceed the configured retention threshold, FortiSASE automatically deletes the older logs from the platform.2 This automatic purging is necessary to free up storage space on the cloud infrastructure and maintain compliance with the organization's data lifecycle settings.

Persistence and Recovery: Once logs are deleted due to the expiration of the retention period, they are generally unrecoverable from the FortiSASE platform.

Long-Term Storage Solutions: Because FortiSASE is not designed as a long-term archival solution, customers who need to store logs for months or years for regulatory compliance should configure log forwarding to an external server, such as a FortiAnalyzer or a remote Syslog server.

Analysis of Incorrect Options: * Option B and D: While traditional FortiAnalyzer deployments use SQL indexing and separate "Archive" (raw/compressed) vs. "Analytics" (SQL) tiers, FortiSASE uses a simplified cloud storage model where data is purged rather than archived or tier-shifted upon expiry.

Option C: While FortiSASE is part of the FortiCloud ecosystem, it does not automatically "back up" expired logs to another FortiCloud service; the deletion is final unless external forwarding is active.

When accessing the FortiSASE portal for the first time, an administrator must select data center locations for the following FortiSASE components:

Endpoint Management:

The data center location for endpoint management ensures that endpoint data and policies are managed and stored within the chosen geographical region.

Points of Presence (PoPs):

Points of Presence (PoPs) are the locations where FortiSASE services are delivered to users. Selecting PoP locations ensures optimal performance and connectivity for users based on their geographical distribution.

Logging:

The data center location for logging determines where log data is stored and managed. This is crucial for compliance and regulatory requirements, as well as for efficient log analysis and reporting.

In the FortiSASE architecture, there are two primary methods for delivering Secure Internet Access (SIA): Agent-based (using FortiClient) and Agentless (using Secure Web Gateway/SWG).

Use Case Analysis: The scenario describes a contractor—an unmanaged user—who requires temporary access for a web-based application (the POS system). For contractors or guests using personal/non-corporate devices where installing the FortiClient agent is either not feasible or not desired, FortiSASE provides the SIA Agentless deployment model.

Mechanism (SWG & PAC): In this mode, FortiSASE functions as an explicit web proxy. To steer the contractor's web traffic (HTTP/HTTPS) to the SASE cloud for inspection, the administrator provides the user with a proxy auto-configuration (PAC) file. The contractor simply configures their browser or operating system to point to the URL of this PAC file.

Security Enforcement: Once the PAC file is applied, all web traffic from the contractor's device is redirected to the FortiSASE SWG PoP. Here, the traffic is subject to the organization’s full security stack, including SSL deep inspection, Antivirus, Web Filtering, and Application Control, ensuring that even temporary contractor access is fully secured and logged.

Why other options are incorrect:

Option B (Tunnel Policy): This refers to agent-based access where a VPN tunnel is established. This requires FortiClient, which is generally not used for temporary contractors on unmanaged devices.

Option C (ZTNA Unmanaged): While ZTNA supports agentless access to private applications (SPA), providing internet access (SIA) to an unmanaged endpoint is specifically the role of the SWG/Proxy service.

Option D (Self-registration): While FortiSASE has a User Portal for onboarding, it is a method for user registration/credential management, not the technical traffic-steering mechanism used to provide internet connectivity.

According to the FortiSASE 25 Secure Internet Access Architecture Guide, the SWG (Agentless) approach is the recommended best practice for securing web-only traffic from unmanaged endpoints and third-party contractors.

The integration of FortiGuard SOCaaS with FortiSASE significantly strengthens an organization's security posture by offloading complex security operations to Fortinet's expert analysts.4

Continuous Threat Monitoring (B): FortiGuard SOCaaS provides 24x7x365 threat monitoring for all endpoints connected to the FortiSASE environment. This service eliminates the need for organizations to hire and maintain their own round-the-clock security operations staff while ensuring that threats are detected and verified in as little as 15 minutes.

Centralized Visibility (C): By forwarding FortiSASE logs to the SOCaaS cloud, administrators gain centralized visibility of all security events through a single, user-friendly portal. This portal allows security teams to track threats, review expert-led incident escalations, and communicate directly with Fortinet SOC analysts to streamline the incident response process.

Operational Efficiency: The integration uses AI-driven alert triage and automated correlation to distill data from the Fortinet Security Fabric, focusing on legitimate threats and reducing the alert fatigue often experienced by internal IT teams.

FortiSASE uses the following components for application control to act as an inline-CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker):

SSL Deep Inspection:

SSL deep inspection is essential for decrypting and inspecting HTTPS traffic to identify and control applications and data transfers within encrypted traffic.

This allows FortiSASE to enforce security policies on SSL/TLS encrypted traffic, providing visibility and control over cloud applications.

Web Filter with Inline-CASB:

The web filter component integrates with inline-CASB to monitor and control access to cloud applications based on predefined security policies.

This combination provides granular control over cloud application usage, ensuring compliance with security policies and preventing unauthorized data transfers.

SSL deep inspection (DPI) is a critical security function that allows FortiSASE to decrypt and inspect the actual payload of encrypted traffic (such as HTTPS, SMTPS, and FTPS) to identify and block hidden threats.

The Role of the CA: For this process to occur, FortiSASE must act as a "man-in-the-middle" by intercepting the SSL session, decrypting it for inspection, and then re-encrypting it before sending it to the endpoint.2 To re-encrypt the traffic, FortiSASE acts as a Certificate Authority (CA) and signs a new certificate for the destination website on the fly.

Certificate Types: This CA role can be fulfilled using the default self-signed certificate provided by Fortinet (typically Fortinet_CA_SSL) or a certificate issued by an organization's internal/private CA. Publicly trusted third-party CAs (like DigiCert or Let's Encrypt) do not sell CA-capable certificates that can be used for this type of inspection.

Client Machine Requirement: Because the endpoint’s browser or operating system will not natively trust a certificate signed by a private or self-signed CA, the root CA certificate must be imported into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store on all managed client machines. Failure to do so results in persistent certificate warnings or blocked connections for the end user.

Supported Features: Once enabled, SSL deep inspection provides the necessary visibility for high-level security features to function, including Antivirus, Web Filtering, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), File Filter, and Application Control.

FortiSASE Geofencing and Regional Compliance allow administrators to control where remote users connect based on their physical location, which is determined by the endpoint's public IP address.3

Default Connection Behavior: By default, FortiSASE uses a "best-effort" geolocation logic to ensure the lowest latency for the user. If an administrator has not configured a specific regional compliance rule for a user's country or region, FortiClient will automatically attempt to connect to the closest available FortiSASE security PoP (Point of Presence) based on proximity.4

Regional Compliance Rules: When an organization must enforce data residency or specific security routing requirements, they create Regional Compliance rules. According to the FortiSASE 25 Feature Administration Guide, these rules allow the administrator to override the default "closest PoP" behavior for specific countries.

Connectivity Options: Within a regional compliance rule, the administrator must specify the destination for the traffic. The system provides a choice between two distinct connection types: a FortiSASE Security PoP or an On-premises device (such as a FortiGate acting as a gateway).5 The documentation specifies that a rule is designed to point to one of these types at a time to satisfy the compliance requirement for that specific region.

Connection Priority: While multiple connections can be managed in a priority table, the logic for Regional Compliance is focused on directing the user to the designated compliant entry point. Option D is incorrect because the connection order is determined by the Priority and custom fail-over connections table; an administrator can manually adjust the sequence, so it is not "always" the security PoP first.