How is payload content handled during SSL inspection?

During SSL inspection, payload content is handled by obfuscating user and device data without storing the content on disk. This approach strikes a balance between maintaining user privacy and compliance with security practices.

When SSL traffic is inspected, encrypted data is decrypted temporarily to inspect its content for malicious activity or policy violations. However, for privacy and security reasons, the actual content of this data is not stored on disk. Instead, Zscaler's architecture ensures that user and device identifiers are obfuscated or anonymized during the process. This means that while necessary analysis can occur, sensitive information is not kept, thereby reducing the risk of exposure or misuse of personal data.

Other approaches, such as logging all data for future reference or permanently saving the content for analysis, would pose significant privacy risks and potentially violate regulations like GDPR or CCPA. Compressing data to reduce bandwidth usage doesn't address the need for content inspection and security, thus isn't relevant in the context of SSL inspection practices.