ZDTA Zscaler Digital Transformation Administrator Questions and Answers

The Forwarding Profile in Zscaler defines the fallback methods and behavior when a DTLS tunnel cannot be established. This profile governs how traffic should be forwarded if the preferred DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) tunnel fails, ensuring continuity by falling back to alternative methods such as TLS or other configured options. It is critical to maintaining secure and resilient connectivity paths for traffic forwarding.

The study guide clarifies that this forwarding profile specifically addresses DTLS fallback behavior to maintain session reliability.

Prevent Compromise analyzes device and network telemetry - including security configurations, event logs, and traffic flows - to gauge how well you’re blocking initial intrusion attempts and misconfigurations.

Zscaler Advanced Firewall supports DNS Tunnel and DNS Application Control, capabilities that are not available in the Standard Firewall. This enhances detection and control of DNS-based threats and allows granular enforcement over DNS queries and responses to prevent data exfiltration and command and control activities.

Imported MIP labels are applied as matching criteria within a custom DLP Policy, letting ZIA inspect data in motion and enforce actions (block, quarantine, notify) based on the sensitivity label assigned by Microsoft Information Protection.

Virus scanning in the Zscaler platform is part of its Malware Protection capability, which inspects file content against known virus signatures and behaviors.

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.

To avoid prompting users with a cloud selection menu in the Zscaler Client Connector (ZCC), administrators should customize the MSI installation package with the CLOUDNAME parameter. This setting ensures the ZCC automatically connects to the correct ZIA cloud instance without user intervention. The CLOUDNAME corresponds to the designated cloud name for the organization’s ZIA tenant, effectively bypassing the prompt. This is outlined under Zscaler's deployment and configuration instructions for ZCC.

In SaaS Security API DLP policies you can choose “Remove External Collaborators and Shareable Link” as the enforcement action - Zscaler will report the incident, revoke any external collaborators on the file, and delete its external share links.

One of the four essential steps of a cyber attack is to find the attack surface. This step involves identifying vulnerabilities, entry points, and targets within an organization’s network or systems that can be exploited by attackers.

The study guide outlines this as a critical phase in the cyber kill chain, where attackers map out potential avenues for compromise.

When you create a Server Group in the ZPA admin console (or via API/Infrastructure-as‑Code), you explicitly select which App Connector Groups should serve that Server Group. Those connector groups are then used to advertise reachability and steer traffic to the included application servers.

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.

The forwarding mechanism called ZTunnel with Local Proxy creates a loopback address on the machine to forward traffic to the Zscaler cloud. This local proxy intercepts client traffic on the loopback interface and securely forwards it through the Zscaler cloud, providing flexibility and control over traffic forwarding.

The DLP (Data Loss Prevention) Engine in Zscaler consists of DLP Dictionaries. These dictionaries contain the sensitive data patterns, keywords, and identifiers used to detect sensitive information in network traffic. They serve as the foundation for defining what content should be inspected and protected.

While DLP policies and rules govern how the engine acts, the engine itself fundamentally depends on these dictionaries to identify sensitive data accurately. The study guide states that DLP Dictionaries are key components that power the detection capabilities within the engine.

Users receive conditional access only once they satisfy the policy’s authorization and security criteria, ensuring device posture, user identity, and any other checks have passed before they can reach the segmented application.

The two most efficient ways to provision users authenticated via SAML are SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) and SAML Autoprovisioning. SCIM allows automated user provisioning and deprovisioning, while SAML Autoprovisioning enables dynamic user account creation upon authentication, streamlining user lifecycle management.

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.

Zscaler Identity Threat Detection and Response gathers information about Active Directory (AD) domains primarily by running LDAP queries. LDAP queries allow the system to retrieve user and domain information directly and accurately from the AD infrastructure, enabling detection and analysis of identity threats and suspicious activities.

The study guide highlights the use of LDAP queries as a reliable and standard method for accessing AD domain data in this security context.

The feature that allows Zscaler to apply URL filtering even when a Cloud App control policy explicitly permits a transaction is called Allow Cascading. This feature ensures that even if a cloud application is permitted by the Cloud App control policy, the URL filtering policy can still be enforced. This is useful in cases where granular URL control is needed on top of cloud app permissions, providing layered security controls.

The study guide clearly explains that Allow Cascading enables URL filtering policies to cascade or take precedence and thus still inspect and potentially block URLs even if the cloud app is allowed by policy. This allows administrators to fine-tune access and ensure additional inspection layers on web traffic .

Zscaler’s short‑lived intermediate CA certificates on the ZIA Service Edges are valid for 14 days and are automatically rotated every 7 days, minimizing the window of exposure even if a private key is compromised.

SCIM (System for Cross‑domain Identity Management) is the open standard API designed for automated provisioning and ongoing synchronization of users’ attributes, such as group and department, between identity providers and service platforms.

Valid criteria for Access Policy Rules in ZPA include Group Membership, ZIA Risk Score, Domain Joined, and Certificate Trust. These attributes allow granular policy decisions based on user identity, device posture, and risk context.

Options including password are invalid as passwords are not used as policy criteria; similarly, SNI and Branch Connector Group are more relevant to other controls. The study guide lists these user and device attributes explicitly as policy criteria within ZPA access policies.

Z-Tunnel 2.0 upgrades over 1.0 by carrying all ports and protocols through the Cloud Firewall for inspection - rather than being limited to just HTTP/HTTPS - ensuring full visibility and control.

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.

Zscaler Platform Services, such as web filtering, advanced threat protection, DLP, and more, operate on decrypted traffic. This decryption is enabled by TLS Inspection, which intercepts SSL/TLS sessions, decrypts the payloads for inspection, and then re‑encrypts the traffic before forwarding to the destination.

A primary business risk introduced by legacy firewalls is performance issues. Traditional firewalls are often unable to efficiently handle modern high-volume and encrypted traffic, leading to latency, bottlenecks, and reduced network performance. This negatively impacts user experience and security posture. The study guide points out that legacy firewalls struggle with scalability and speed in today’s cloud-centric environment, making performance a key concern.

Yes, the Access Control suite includes controls for segmentation and conditional access, which are designed to prevent lateral movement within networks. These features allow organizations to restrict access between different segments and enforce policies that limit the spread of threats or unauthorized access within internal environments.

The graph in the Security Alerts section displays the Top 5 Threats by Systems Impacted, highlighting which threats have affected the most endpoints over the selected time period.

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.

When the Zscaler Client Connector launches, it initially interacts with the Zscaler Central Authority portal. This portal provides the Client Connector with information about the user's domain and the configured identity provider (IdP). This interaction allows the Client Connector to direct the user to the appropriate authentication endpoint and apply the correct access policies.

The study guide emphasizes the role of the Central Authority in managing user domain information and identity provider details for authentication flows.

The ATP workflow focuses on protecting users from security threats such as phishing, malware, and malicious URLs through mechanisms including IPS coverage on client and server sides, categorization of URLs (especially newly registered domains), and prevention of risky file downloads like password-protected zip files. However, reporting on network performance issues such as high latency on a Teams call caused by low WiFi signal is outside the scope of ATP. This type of issue relates to digital experience or network performance monitoring, not threat protection.

You need at least two App Connectors per data center to ensure high availability and load distribution, so with four data centers the minimum total is eight.

The Cloud Firewall includes Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities that detect protocol evasion techniques where applications try to communicate over non-standard ports to bypass firewall controls. Once detected, the traffic is sent to the appropriate inspection engines for further handling and mitigation. This ensures that evasive traffic does not bypass security controls.

A Watering Hole Attack is characterized by attackers planting malware on websites or services that are commonly accessed by their intended victims. The goal is to infect users who visit these trusted sites by injecting malicious code or malware. This type of attack leverages the trust users place in frequently visited services to deliver malware covertly.

Other options like Remote Access Trojans, Phishing, and Exploit Kits are attack types but do not specifically involve compromising commonly accessed services to plant malware.