TechChannel Rising Star recipient, Megan Olson took part in a roundtable discussion to share her experience as a newcomer to the IBM i industry.

PCI DSS now includes requirements for strong encryption of cardholder data. Learn how key management is an essential element of preventing unauthorized data access.

As you consider taking your IBM i to the cloud, cybersecurity will no doubt top your list of concerns. And for good reason. It’s important to remember that the cloud is kind of a lie. Your sensitive data is simply being sent to someone else’s server, and that server has a physical location somewhere. Just like on-prem cybersecurity, IBM i cloud security can be divided into two parts: Regulatory...

Typically, there are two main issues with monitoring a system manually: having to go out deliberately (and repeatedly) and check to see if something has happened; and the fact that you are most likely looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack of logged events.

When it comes to security on IBM Power Servers running IBM i, a common challenge for many organizations is the number of users with too much power. These users can potentially circumvent application controls, override security restrictions for themselves and others, change critical server configuration settings, and even cover their tracks while they do it.

While everyone likes to feel special, we need to be more selective when it comes to data access. As we discussed last month, many users have privileges far beyond their business requirements and simply need to have their access reduced to more reasonable levels.

Ask any security professional which area of IBM i security is most often ignored and chances are that the unanimous response is a chorus of “the Integrated File System.” Although it’s been around since V3R1, the Integrated File System, or IFS, remains a shrouded mystery that represents significant risk to many IBM i organizations.

Let’s face it; system administration remains a largely thankless task. From scheduling jobs to balancing workloads to answering messages in QSYSOPR, administrators and operators work diligently behind the scenes to ensure that IBM i servers are available to run mission-critical applications.

Protect your data and your company from internal and external threats by ensuring that your security policies on-premises and in the cloud are aligned with this checklist.

“Some cloud vendors tout that systems deployed within their framework require little or no administration: You create an image with the software and applications that you want it to provide services for, spin it up in a management console, and Voila! you have an entirely new system online; with minimal cost, no hassle, little work. However, even with newer models for virtualization appearing on...

Despite the server’s incredible security infrastructure, auditing remains primarily a thankless, manual chore. And, let’s face it, any task that’s thankless and manual probably won’t get done.

A user’s ability to execute commands in a green-screen environment is controlled by the limit capabilities (LMTCPB) parameter on their profile. Although without exit programs to extend IBM i security functions, even limited capability users could invoke commands through network interfaces such as FTP.

Introduced by IBM to support TCP/IP services, a profile swap allows a job to change midstream and run under a different profile than the one that started it.

Does this sound familiar? You recently experienced an “unplanned outage” after an administrator inadvertently issued a PWRDWNSYS command while mentoring a new operator.

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) helps ensure that your critical and sensitive data is viewed and changed only by authorized personnel through approved channels. Candidates for FIM include application files containing sensitive data, such as personnel or financial data, and server configuration files.

System admins need root level authority at all times, system operations staff needs periodic database and application account authority, and security admins needing to protect the environment are some of the few of the challenges of managing privilege in the enterprise server infrastructure. Read this article to learn more about Sudo alternatives.

THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM Secure, private, effective use of computers by a company (including hosted, cloud and other services as well as the company’s own systems) relies on managing access privileges. The problem isn’t unique to computers. Office buildings, hotels, apartments and college dorms, for example, typically have “master keys” (or smart ID badges) that can open many-toall of the locks in the...

According to a recent KPMG report, four-fifths of executives at healthcare providers and payers say their information technology has been compromised by cyberattacks. That same report presents how the increased risk to healthcare organizations relates to the richness and uniqueness of the information that health plans, doctors and hospitals handle. Apart from typical financial fraud, there is also...