ZDTA Zscaler Digital Transformation Administrator Question and Answers

The on-premises VM in the Enterprise Data Management (EDM) process primarily locally analyzes cloud transactions for potential Personally Identifiable Information (PII) exfiltration. This allows organizations to detect and prevent sensitive data leaving their environment by inspecting cloud interactions close to their premises.

The study guide highlights that the VM acts as a local control point in the EDM workflow, ensuring sensitive data protection during cloud transactions.

Zscaler’s Workflow Automation integrates with collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack to send real‑time DLP violation alerts directly to end‑users.

Zero Trust is achieved by granting users application‑level access without ever placing them on the same network as the destination, ensuring users can reach only the specific app and never the underlying network.

When a ZDX custom application is configured with the type set to 'Network', the administrator will not get Disk I/O metrics for users. Disk I/O metrics relate to local client device performance and are not part of network-type application probes which focus on network latency, server response, and other network-centric measurements.

The study guide notes that Disk I/O is part of endpoint-level monitoring and is not collected by network-type probes, unlike metrics such as Server Response Time or ZDX Score which are network related.

Zscaler supports RDP, VNC, and SSH protocols for Privileged Remote Access. These are commonly used protocols for remote management and privileged user sessions, allowing secure access to internal applications or systems without exposing the network or requiring VPN connections.

The study guide clearly states that Privileged Remote Access capabilities focus on these protocols to ensure secure, monitored, and controlled remote sessions for administrators and privileged users, supporting remote desktop and shell access securely .

A Server Group holds the actual backend endpoints - defined by FQDNs (or IPs) and ports - and effectively maps those FQDNs to their IP addresses so ZPA knows which hosts to steer traffic toward.

After the Zscaler Client Connector (ZCC) receives a valid SAML response, Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) takes over to validate the SAML assertion. Upon successful validation, ZIA issues an authentication token that allows the user to access services securely. This centralized validation ensures authentication integrity and enables seamless policy enforcement across Zscaler services.

Out of the box, Zscaler’s Malware Protection policy is configured to block any traffic identified as a virus, ensuring known malicious files are denied immediately.

Platform Services provide the fundamental capabilities needed by other services within the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange. These services include core functions such as identity management, policy management, logging, reporting, and API integrations that underpin and support the other service modules.

The study guide clarifies that Platform Services form the backbone of the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, enabling seamless interoperability and foundational support for security and access services.

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) defends users from malicious active content, which includes malware, exploit kits, malicious scripts, and other forms of active content designed to compromise user systems. ATP employs multiple techniques such as sandboxing, malware scanning, and threat intelligence to detect and block these threats before they reach the user.

The Email Notification Template is the built‑in mechanism for forwarding a copy of the exact content that triggered a DLP rule to your designated auditor via email.

Certificate pinning prevents SSL interception by validating a server’s certificate against known values. When ZIA performs SSL inspection, it substitutes the certificate with one signed by Zscaler’s CA. This causes the handshake to fail for pinned applications. To troubleshoot, an administrator should review SSL logs to identify handshake failures, which indicate certificate pinning issues. Logs will show the TLS negotiation details, including any disruptions.

Zero Trust Connections don’t rely on the underlying network’s security or topology - they enforce access and control at the application level, independent of any fixed or trusted network environment.

Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) is not supported as a tunnel type by Zscaler. Zscaler supports GRE, HTTP Connect tunnels, and its own proprietary Microtunnels for traffic forwarding and secure connectivity, but SSTP is not among the supported tunnel protocols.

When the Zscaler Office 365 One Click Rule is enabled, Office 365 traffic is exempted from SSL inspection and other web policies to optimize performance and user experience. This rule simplifies policy configuration by automatically identifying and excluding Office 365 cloud traffic from inspection, reducing latency and avoiding potential conflicts with Office 365 services.

The study guide clarifies that this rule helps balance security with seamless cloud application usage.

Cloud Application policies offer deeper, application‑aware controls, such as granular actions on specific SaaS functions, making them a superior choice for managing access to modern web apps compared to generic URL filters.

For a unified, seamless experience - and because ZPA only supports SAML while ZIA’s recommended authentication is also SAML - you should configure SAML‑based SSO on both ZIA and ZPA. This ensures one consistent identity flow and eliminates multiple credential prompts across the platforms.

Tenant Restriction is the ZIA feature that enforces access control policies to prevent access to certain SaaS applications from unmanaged or non-compliant devices. This ensures that only authorized and managed devices can access sensitive corporate SaaS resources, enhancing security posture.

The study guide highlights Tenant Restriction as an essential control for enforcing device compliance in SaaS access policies.

The Zscaler Client Connector is the lightweight agent installed on endpoints - whether at home, in the office, or on the road - to securely forward user traffic into the Zero Trust Exchange.

A ZIA Sublocation is defined as a subsection of a corporate Location that is used to separate different types of traffic, such as traffic from employees versus guest traffic. This segmentation allows granular application of policies and better control over different user groups within the same corporate location. Sublocations help in organizing and managing traffic flows for better policy enforcement and reporting.

The ATP “Security Exceptions” allow list is leveraged by both Advanced Threat Protection and the Sandbox policy - URLs or hosts you add here won’t be submitted for sandbox analysis.

Firewall Filtering policies govern network‑level application traffic, so access to a Network Application is blocked by a Firewall Filtering rule.

Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) solutions are specifically designed to identify and remediate identity‑centric risks - continuously assessing user and service identities to detect compromised credentials, misconfigurations, or risky behaviors, thereby reducing overall identity‑related risk.

Server Groups in ZPA use Dynamic Server Discovery to supply Connector Groups with the application endpoints’ DNS names or IPs. The Connector Groups then resolve those addresses and perform health checks to ensure the applications are reachable before steering user traffic.

By blocking suspected phishing sites in the Advanced Threats policy, you stop users from reaching malicious pages engineered to capture their credentials.

Access Policies apply the same allow-or-block decision to both individual Application Segments and to Application Segment Groups when their rule conditions are met.

The inline DLP engines are responsible for inspecting content, identifying sensitive data matches, enforcing allow-or-block actions, and generating notifications (e.g., to your auditor) whenever a DLP rule is triggered.

Trusted Networks in Zscaler are defined using network-specific parameters such as DNS Server, Default Gateway, and Network Range, which are used to identify known internal networks. These properties help Zscaler Client Connector recognize when a device is on a corporate network. Org ID, however, is unrelated to the network characteristics and is instead associated with tenant identification in Zscaler’s cloud infrastructure.

Beyond email, Alert Rule notifications can be pushed via Webhooks to integrate with ITSM platforms or UCaaS tools, enabling real‑time incident management and collaboration in your existing service desks or messaging systems.

Zscaler’s SaaS Security Posture Management natively supports platforms such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Salesforce, and Atlassian, so among the options listed, Google Workspace is the supported platform.

Cloud application control is the feature that allows an administrator to distinguish and enforce policies specifically on the corporate instance of a SaaS application. This enables granular control, allowing users to access the approved corporate SaaS while restricting access to personal or unauthorized instances. Out-of-band CASB generally provides visibility but does not enforce real-time distinctions in this context. URL filtering with SSL inspection and Endpoint DLP serve different purposes, such as content inspection and endpoint data protection, respectively.

The study guide explains that Cloud Application Control policies identify and enforce controls based on SaaS application instances, providing precise policy enforcement aligned with corporate SaaS usage requirements.

The Deception feature in Zscaler detects intruders attempting to access internal resources by deploying deceptive assets or traps that identify unauthorized or suspicious activity. This proactive approach to threat detection helps identify attackers who have bypassed other defenses.