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.

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.

There are several considerations with authority adoption. Each is important but can usually be accommodated. But what is the effect if the program owner has the same or less privileges than the user that called the program?