300-710 Securing Networks with Cisco Firepower (300-710 SNCF) v1.2 Questions and Answers

To configure URL filtering such that users receive a warning when they access a specific website (e.g.,http://www.badadultsite.com) and have the option to continue to the site, the engineer needs to perform the following actions:

Configure an access control rule:

Create a URL object forhttp://www.badadultsite.com.

Set the action for this URL object to " Interactive Block, " which prompts the user with a warning and allows them to proceed if they choose to.

Set the Interactive Block Response Page:

Navigate to the HTTP Responses tab in the access control policy editor.

Set the Interactive Block Response Page to " System-provided " to ensure that users see the default warning page provided by Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center.

These actions ensure that only the specified website triggers an interactive block, while other websites are not blocked.

Transparent firewall mode forwards traffic at Layer 2, so the participating physical interfaces must be assigned to at least one bridge group. This allows the device to inspect traffic while remaining logically transparent to the connected switch stacks. Bridge Protocol Data Units should also be exempted from advanced inspection. BPDUs are essential for spanning-tree operation, and delaying or blocking them during inspection restarts can produce topology instability or an interruption. A BVI provides Layer 3 addressing for device-originated traffic or management but is not inherently required merely to inspect transit traffic. Jumbo-frame configuration is unnecessary unless the network explicitly uses jumbo frames, and separate data and management routes do not establish transparent forwarding. Cisco specifically recommends using an EtherType ACL to trust BPDUs on each bridge-group member interface. Cisco transparent firewall configuration

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A screenshot of a computer AI-generated content may be incorrect.

To capture packets that are dropped by Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) and troubleshoot the issue of traffic from the inside network to a webserver not getting through, the administrator should use the command to capture packets dropped by the accelerated security path (ASP) engine. The correct command is:

capture CAP type asp-drop all headers-only

This command captures all packets dropped by the ASP engine, which includes packets that are being blocked by access control policies, NAT issues, or other security checks.

Steps:

Access the FTD CLI.

Run the commandcapture CAP type asp-drop all headers-onlyto capture dropped packets.

Analyze the captured data to identify the cause of the drops.

This command provides detailed information on why packets are being dropped, helping the administrator resolve the issue.

A file policy defines the actions that the Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) device should take when it encounters different types of files. The file policy is applied as part of an access control policy. If an access control policy does not include a file policy, the FTD device will not take any action on the files it encounters, resulting in a disposition of " unknown " for all file types except exe.

An inline set consists of paired Secure Firewall Threat Defense interfaces placed directly in the network traffic path. The interfaces operate like a bump in the wire: one interface receives the traffic, the inspection engine evaluates it, and the paired interface retransmits it unless an access-control, intrusion, file, or other security policy explicitly drops it. This arrangement enables the IPS to prevent attacks because the device can stop malicious packets before forwarding them. A passive interface also receives traffic unconditionally, but it receives copied traffic from a SPAN or mirror port and retransmits none of it. Routed and transparent modes describe broader firewall packet-forwarding behavior rather than this IPS-only interface characteristic. Therefore, an inline deployment satisfies the requirement to inspect, retransmit, and selectively drop traffic. Cisco inline-set documentation

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https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/601/configuration/guide/fpmc-config-guide-v601/fpmc-config-guide-v60_chapter_01011010.pdf

The Cisco Threat Response browser plugin provides contextual investigation capabilities that can be launched from Secure Firewall Management Center. It allows an administrator to investigate an observable, such as a suspicious IP address, against Cisco threat-intelligence and integrated security sources without manually transferring the value to another interface. Secure Network Analytics analyzes network telemetry and behavior but is not the browser-based lookup mechanism described. Cisco ISE supplies identity, authorization, and network-access context, while Secure Endpoint provides endpoint telemetry and file or process investigation. Neither is the direct web-page investigation tool requested. Cisco documentation describes contextual cross-launch functionality for looking up suspicious source addresses in Cisco or third-party cloud-hosted intelligence services. Therefore, the Threat Response browser plugin is the correct selection. Cisco event investigation using web resources

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Dynamic Analysis submits eligible files with an Unknown or Unavailable malware-cloud disposition to Cisco Secure Malware Analytics, formerly Cisco Threat Grid. The service executes and observes the file in a controlled environment, examines its behavior, and returns a threat score and detailed analysis report. Secure Firewall Management Center can use the returned threat score and the threshold configured in the file policy to determine whether the file should be treated as malware. Spero Analysis is different because it examines structural characteristics and generates a signature primarily for executable files. It does not provide the comprehensive sandbox-based behavioral examination described in the question. Therefore, when unknown files must be submitted to Secure Malware Analytics for deeper investigation, Dynamic Analysis is the required configuration. Cisco file-policy documentation

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A low-impact attack indicates that the host is not vulnerable to those attacks. A low-impact attack is an attack that does not exploit any known vulnerability on the target host or does not match any signature or anomaly rule on the FTD device5. A low-impact attack does not mean that the attack is not dangerous to the network or that the host is not within the administrator’s environment. It simply means that the attack did not succeed in compromising or affecting the host.

The other options are incorrect because:

All attacks are not listed as low until manually categorized. The FTD device automatically assigns an impact level to each attack based on various factors, such as vulnerability information, threat score, and confidence rating5. The impact level can be high, medium, or low, depending on how likely and how severe the attack is.

The attacks are not necessarily harmless to the network. A low-impact attack may still cause some damage or disruption to the network, such as consuming bandwidth, generating noise, or distracting attention from other attacks6. A low-impact attack may also indicate that the attacker is probing or scanning the network for potential vulnerabilities or weaknesses7.

The host is not necessarily outside the administrator’s environment. A low-impact attack can target any host on the network, regardless of its location or ownership. A low-impact attack does not imply that the host is external or irrelevant to the administrator’s environment.

Interface → outside

Source Host → any

Packet 1 source → 209.165.201.2

Packet 2 source → 209.165.201.1

Packet 4 ICMP message → echo reply

Unused Options:

209.165.202.1

209.165.202.2

The capture must run on the FTDv outside interface, where the client’s translated address is 209.165.201.2. Selecting any as the source-host criterion captures both the outbound echo requests and the inbound ICMP responses. The first request therefore appears as 209.165.201.2 to 209.165.202.2. When the initial traceroute probe expires at R1, the router generates an ICMP time-exceeded response using its interface address 209.165.201.1. A later probe reaches Server1, which returns an ICMP echo reply from 209.165.202.2 to 209.165.201.2. The completed-answer exhibit in List B places several IP addresses inconsistently; the mapping above follows the displayed topology and actual ICMP traceroute packet flow. Cisco FTD capture and Packet Tracer guidance

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https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/640/configuration/guide/fpmc-config-guide-v64/system_configuration.html#ID-2241-00000551

“You cannot send backups to one remote system and reports to another, but you can choose to send either to a remote system and store the other on the Firepower Management Center.”

When an FTD device that is managed by FDM is registered to FMC, the existing configuration is automatically converted and imported into FMC. The FMC then pushes the configuration back to the device. This process preserves most of the FDM configuration, except for some features that are not supported by FMC, such as VPN wizards and certificates.

The “Risky Applications with Low Business Relevance” widget identifies BitTorrent as the most significant application risk, with 342 connections—substantially more than the other applications displayed. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer application that can introduce malware, facilitate unauthorized file transfers, consume bandwidth, and bypass normal content-distribution controls. The engineer should configure an access control rule or application filter that blocks all BitTorrent applications. Google Play appears only as a frequently used web application and is not identified by the dashboard as the primary risky application. Disabling a user account would not address BitTorrent usage by other users, while patching Chrome concerns endpoint vulnerability management rather than application usage risk. Cisco application-control rules can block applications according to risk and business relevance. Cisco application-control documentation

When connectivity issues are detected between Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) and Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) devices, and initial troubleshooting indicates that heartbeats and events are not being received, the engineer can run the following commands to resolve the issue by re-establishing secure channels and checking process statuses:

manage_procs.pl:This script is used to manage and restart processes on the FTD device. Running this script can help restart any malfunctioning processes and re-establish connectivity between the FMC and FTD.

sudo stats_unified.pl:This command provides detailed statistics and status of the unified system processes. It helps in diagnosing and resolving issues related to the secure channel and event reporting.

Steps:

Access the FTD CLI.

Run the commandmanage_procs.plto restart processes.

Run the commandsudo stats_unified.plto gather detailed process statistics and verify the status.

These commands help resolve connectivity issues by ensuring that all necessary processes are running correctly and secure channels are re-established.

To support more than two interfaces per context and enable NAT configurations, the firewall must operate in routed mode. Since the firewall was previously in transparent mode, the network engineer needs to change it to routed mode.

Steps:

Access the CLI of the Secure FTD device.

Run the commandconfigure firewall routedto switch the firewall from transparent mode to routed mode.

Reregister the FTD device with the FMC by running theconfigure manager add < FMC_IP > < Registration_Key > command from the FTD device CLI.

This will ensure that the firewall can support the required NAT configurations and more than two interfaces per context.

Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense supports IPsec encryption between the failover links of a high-availability pair. During HA configuration, the engineer enables encryption and selects the appropriate Key Generation method for IPsec. This protects failover and stateful synchronization data exchanged between the active and standby units. An SSL remote-access VPN is designed for user-to-network connectivity and is not used to protect an internal HA link. SSL is also not the documented encryption mechanism for Threat Defense failover synchronization. Clearing a commit queue does not encrypt or otherwise protect synchronized state information. Cisco’s HA configuration procedure explicitly instructs administrators to enable the encryption option and choose the Key Generation method for IPsec encryption between the failover links. Therefore, option B directly implements the required synchronization-protection mechanism. Cisco Secure Firewall high-availability configuration

The Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is enabled under the SSL tab of an access control policy. EVE provides visibility into encrypted traffic, allowing the firewall to detect threats even when traffic is encrypted.

Steps to enable EVE:

Navigate to the access control policy in FMC.

Go to theSSLtab.

Enable Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) to analyze encrypted traffic.

This configuration helps in identifying and mitigating threats within encrypted traffic without the need for full decryption.

Intrusion events provide the detection evidence needed to understand which signatures fired, the affected source and destination addresses, event severity, protocol information, and other indicators associated with the suspected compromise. Host connections provide the corresponding network context, allowing the analyst to determine which systems communicated, when the sessions occurred, and which ports, applications, or protocols were involved. Together, these details connect security detections with the traffic flows that produced them and support reconstruction of the incident. Client applications by user and user connections are useful when the investigation is primarily identity-focused, but they do not provide the same direct combination of exploit evidence and host-level network activity. The number of attacked machines is an aggregate measurement and lacks the granular information necessary to investigate the suspicious communications and determine their cause.

The capture should be taken on the DMZ interface of the perimeter firewall because this is the firewall interface closest to the affected server. Capturing there shows the packets delivered to the server and the TCP RST packets returned by it. This placement helps determine whether the reset originates from the server, whether address translation changed the connection, or whether the firewall generated or altered the traffic. Capturing only on the internet-facing interface would show the external behavior but provide less certainty about what reached or left the DMZ server. The perimeter router and ISP router are even farther from the suspected source. Cisco troubleshooting guidance recommends capturing as close as possible to the relevant endpoint and on the associated firewall data interface. List B’s supplied answer C is therefore incorrect and has been corrected to D. Cisco firewall capture analysis

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Standard reports from Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center can be downloaded in CSV (Comma-Separated Values) format. This format is widely used for data exchange and can be opened in various applications such as Microsoft Excel.

Steps to download reports:

Navigate toReports > Report Designerin the FMC.

Select or create the report you wish to download.

Choose the CSV format option when exporting the report.

This allows the network engineer to analyze and manipulate the report data easily.

Threat Intelligence Director cannot apply Block directly to a TAXII source because STIX data obtained through TAXII can contain complex indicators. A managed device takes enforcement action based on individual observables, such as an IP address, URL, domain, or file hash. After the TAXII content has been ingested, an administrator can configure Block on an individual observable or on a simple indicator containing one actionable observable. Complex indicators combine multiple observables and therefore cannot be blocked directly; the administrator must instead block the appropriate individual observables within them. An element is the managed device that receives published intelligence, not an intelligence object on which this action is configured. Consequently, the two supported object types are an observable and a simple indicator. Cisco Threat Intelligence Director documentation

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The casebook and pivot menu are widgets available in Cisco Threat Response. Casebook - It is used to record, organize, and share sets of observables of interest primarily during an investigation and threat analysis. You can use a casebook to get the current verdicts or dispositions on the observables.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/ces/user_guide/esa_user_guide_13-5-1/b_ESA_Admin_Guide_ces_13-5-1/b_ESA_Admin_Guide_13-0_chapter_0110001.pdf

In the integration between Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco Firewall Management Center (FMC), realms are used to define the Active Directory (AD) configuration. Realms in FMC specify the AD servers, domain, and other authentication settings necessary to authenticate and authorize users.

Steps to configure realms:

In FMC, navigate toSystem > Integration > Realms and Directory.

Add a new realm and configure the AD settings.

Ensure the realm settings match the AD environment for seamless integration.

Realms are essential for integrating AD with FMC, allowing the firewall to use AD for user authentication and policy enforcement.

SNMP provides nonintrusive, read-only monitoring of Secure Firewall Threat Defense devices and is appropriate for collecting high-level device statistics without interrupting production traffic. An external network management system can poll supported Management Information Base objects to obtain CPU utilization, memory usage, interface statistics, Snort information, process status, high-availability state, and cluster health. SNMP traps can also report important events without requiring continuous manual access to the device. Malware reports focus on malicious files and malware events, while risk reports summarize security risks and attacks. Host reports describe discovered hosts, applications, operating systems, and vulnerabilities rather than overall device performance. Because the requirement concerns device-level statistics and minimizing operational disruption during peak season, SNMP monitoring is the most appropriate choice. Cisco Secure Firewall SNMP monitoring

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Ref: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/60/configuration/guide/fpmc-config-guide-v60/Tailoring_Intrusion_Protection_to_Your_Network_Assets.html

To protect and encrypt the synchronization/failover traffic between Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) high-availability or cluster units, the correct action is to encrypt the synchronization traffic with IPsec (via the failover/state link configuration) or choose the appropriate cryptographic authentication/key settings

In a passive IPS deployment for a Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) device, the administrator must configure the interface to operate in passive mode. This involves setting the interface mode, associating it with a security zone, enabling the interface, and setting the MTU parameter.

Steps:

Set the interface mode to passive:

In FMC, navigate toDevices > Device Management.

Select the FTD device and configure the relevant interface.

Set the interface mode to " Passive. "

Associate the interface with a security zone:

Create or select an appropriate security zone.

Assign the passive interface to this security zone.

Enable the interface:

Ensure the interface is enabled to receive traffic.

Set the MTU parameter:

Configure the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) parameter as required.

This ensures that the FTD device can inspect traffic passively without impacting the network flow.

The capture shows that the client repeatedly transmits a TCP SYN but does not receive the SYN-ACK required to advance the connection state. This indicates that the return portion of the TCP three-way handshake is not reaching the expected ingress interface or is not being processed there. The outside interface must therefore be configured or connected so that the returning SYN-ACK packets arrive through the interface where the firewall expects them. An access rule does not instruct an interface to generate TCP acknowledgement messages; ACK and SYN-ACK packets are produced by the communicating endpoints. Likewise, permitting communication “with the DMZ” does not address the missing return-handshake packet shown in the capture. Correcting the return path through the outside interface allows the firewall to observe both directions, establish state, and forward the subsequent packets.

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To enable Cisco Secure Firewall Malware Defense to detect and block malware, the network administrator must associate a File policy with an access control policy. File policies allow administrators to configure malware detection and file analysis capabilities on the Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense appliance.

Steps to configure File policy:

Navigate toPolicies > Access Control > File Policiesin the FMC.

Create a new file policy or edit an existing one to include malware detection and blocking settings.

Associate the file policy with the relevant access control policy.

Ensure that the access control policy is deployed to the FTD appliance.

By associating a file policy, the firewall will inspect files being transmitted through the web server for malware and take appropriate actions (block, allow, or alert) based on the configured rules.

Transparent mode allows the FTD device to act as a “bump in the wire” that does not affect the IP addressing of the network. The end user workstations will not need any changes to their configuration, as they will still receive an IP address from the same DHCP server. However, the FTD device must allow DHCP traffic in the access control policies, otherwise it will block the DHCP requests and replies1

Cisco Threat Response (CTR) is a security solution that helps simplify incident investigation and threat hunting. One of its components that significantly simplifies the investigation process is the browser plug-in. The browser plug-in integrates with CTR to provide contextual information directly within the browser, allowing security analysts to quickly view threat details, pivot to related information, and take appropriate actions without switching between multiple tools.

Features of the browser plug-in:

Provides real-time threat intelligence and context from various Cisco security products.

Allows security analysts to investigate incidents directly from web-based consoles.

Enhances efficiency by streamlining the workflow and reducing the time needed to gather and correlate information.

When configuring a new report template based on a saved search in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC), it is important to note that saved searches are specific to the report template they were created with. Saved searches cannot be freely used across different report templates.

To use a different type of saved search, you must ensure that it aligns with the specific report template being used. This restriction ensures that the saved search parameters match the report ' s data requirements.

To deploy a Cisco FTD device that meets the requirements of the question, the engineer must use transparent mode with a management interface. Transparent mode is a firewall configuration in which the FTD device acts as a “bump in the wire” or a “stealth firewall” and is not seen as a router hop to connected devices. In transparent mode, the FTD device can examine traffic without requiring network changes that will disrupt end users, such as changing IP addresses or routingconfigurations1. A management interface is a dedicated interface that is used for managing the FTD device and separating management traffic from data traffic. A management interface can be configured to allow SSH access for remote administration, which is more secure than Telnet2.

The other options are incorrect because:

Routed mode is a firewall configuration in which the FTD device acts as a router and performs address translation and routing for connected networks. Routed mode requires network changes that may disrupt end users, such as changing IP addresses or routing configurations1. A diagnostic interface is a special interface that is used for troubleshooting and capturing traffic on the FTD device. A diagnostic interface does not separate management traffic from data traffic or allow SSH access for remote administration.

Transparent mode with a data interface does not meet the requirement of separating management traffic from data traffic. A data interface is a regular interface that is used for passing and inspecting traffic on the FTD device. A data interface does not allow SSH access for remote administration2.

Routed mode with a bridge virtual interface (BVI) does not meet the requirement of examining traffic without requiring network changes that will disrupt end users. A BVI is a logical interface that acts as a container for one or more physical or logical interfaces that belong to the same layer 2 broadcast domain. A BVI allows the FTD device to route between different bridge groups on the same security module/engine. However, routed mode still requires network changes that may disrupt end users, such as changing IP addresses or routing configurations.

Secure Firewall Management Center evaluates access control entries sequentially from the lowest sequence number to the highest and stops processing after the first match. Because host 10.236.131.1 is contained within network 10.236.131.0/24, the specific host exception must appear before the broader subnet block. Sequence 1 must therefore allow 10.236.131.1, and sequence 2 must block 10.236.131.0/24. If the subnet block were placed first, traffic to 10.236.131.1 would match that entry and never reach the subsequent host allow entry. Cisco recommends placing more specific entries above general entries for exactly this reason. In an access list object, Allow identifies traffic to which the associated service applies, while Block excludes it from that service; it does not necessarily mean the firewall drops the packet. Cisco access-list object documentation

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/firepower/640/configuration/guide/fpmc-config-guide-v64/transparent_or_routed_firewall_mode_for_firepower_threat_defense.html

When packet capture is used on a Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) device and the packet flow is waiting on the malware query, the Snort verdict appears as " retry. " This indicates that the device is still processing the malware analysis and has not yet determined the final action for the packet.

The " retry " verdict signifies that the packet is in a holding state while awaiting the result of the malware inspection, which helps in maintaining the security posture until a definitive decision is made.

A screenshot of a computer AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Peer poll time controls how frequently one high-availability unit sends hello or polling messages to determine whether its peer remains responsive. Peer hold time specifies how long the appliance waits without receiving the expected peer communication before declaring that peer unavailable. Decreasing both values causes the appliances to test peer availability more frequently and wait less time before initiating failover. Interface-oriented timers are used to evaluate monitored data-interface failures and do not specifically accelerate detection of a failed failover link. Although shorter peer timers improve failover speed, excessively aggressive values can cause false failovers during congestion or high CPU utilization. Cisco explains that threat defense appliances monitor peer health through hello messages on the failover link and begin additional testing after consecutive messages are missed. Cisco Secure Firewall high-availability monitoring

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A static-route command follows the structure ip route destination-network subnet-mask next-hop administrative-distance. The required destination is 192.168.10.0/24, which corresponds to subnet mask 255.255.255.0. The next-hop address must be 192.168.20.1, and the routing-table exhibit confirms that the 192.168.20.0/24 network is directly connected through VLAN 10. The final value must be 2 because the question explicitly requires an administrative distance of 2. Option A uses the correct destination and next hop but sets the distance to 1. Options B and D incorrectly reverse the destination and next-hop networks. Consequently, only option C contains all four required elements and installs the route through the connected 192.168.20.0/24 network with the specified preference.

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When performing packet capture on a Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) device, ensuring that the allocated memory is sufficient is crucial for capturing all necessary traffic during a specified capture session. If users experience issues accessing a server and the engineer suspects not all traffic was collected, it indicates that the current memory allocation might not be enough to store the entire capture data for the 15-minute session.

Steps:

Check the current memory allocation for packet captures on the FTD device.

Increase the memory allocation if it is insufficient to handle the volume of traffic expected during the capture session.

This ensures that all relevant traffic is captured and can be analyzed to diagnose and resolve the network issue.

Transparent mode is a firewall configuration in which the firewall acts as a “bump in the wire” or a “stealth firewall” and is not seen as a router hop to connected devices. In transparent mode, the firewall can forward traffic at both layer 2 and layer 3 for the same subnet, as it does not perform any address translation or routing. The firewall inspects the traffic and applies security policies based on the source and destination IP addresses, ports, and protocols. Transparent mode is useful when you want to deploy a firewall without changing the existing network topology or addressing scheme1.

To collect 24 hours ' worth of data using a packet capture on a Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) appliance without prematurely stopping due to buffer size limitations, the engineer should increase the packet capture buffer size. The default buffer size is 32 MB, which is insufficient for extended captures.

Steps:

Access the packet capture configuration on the FTD device.

Increase the buffer size to 1 GB, which provides a significantly larger capacity for capturing packets over a 24-hour period.

Setting the buffer size to 1 GB should accommodate a substantial amount of traffic and prevent the capture from stopping prematurely.

Name → HTTP-HTTPS-QoS

Apply QoS On → Interfaces in Destination Interface Objects

Download/Upload Limit → 5 Mb/s

Source Interface Networks → 192.168.1.0/24

Destination Interface Networks → 192.168.2.0/24

Destination Ports → HTTP-HTTPS

The HR workstation resides on the inside 192.168.1.0/24 network, making that subnet the source-interface network. Internet-bound traffic exits through the 192.168.2.0/24 network, which must be configured as the destination-interface network. Because rate limiting must occur as traffic leaves toward the internet, QoS is applied to interfaces in the destination interface objects. The HTTP-HTTPS object identifies the destination ports for web traffic, while HTTP-HTTPS-QoS provides a descriptive rule name. Both download and upload limits are configured as 5 Mb/s. Cisco Secure Firewall applies a QoS limit independently on each selected interface and determines upload and download direction based on the connection initiator. The Apply QoS On selection must correspond to a populated source or destination interface condition. Cisco Secure Firewall QoS configuration