Network Defense Essentials (NDE) Practice Exam 2025 - Free Network Defense Practice Questions and Study Guide

A proxy server operates by acting as an intermediary between a user's device and the internet. It receives requests for web resources from clients, forwards those requests to the appropriate web server, and then relays the response back to the client. This process allows the proxy server to inspect and filter web traffic, making it capable of intercepting and blocking malicious content before it reaches the user's device.

Proxy servers can also cache content to improve performance, enforce security policies by allowing or denying access to specific websites, and provide anonymity to users by masking their IP addresses. In the context of network security, this capability to analyze and control web content helps protect users from various threats, such as malware or phishing attempts.

In contrast, other options, such as firewalls, primarily focus on filtering traffic based on predetermined security rules, while VPN concentrators are intended to secure remote access and encrypt data in transit. Routers serve to direct data packets between networks but do not typically analyze the content of those packets for security threats.