Resources

Blog

PCI Compliance is Only the Beginning of Security

The recent string of breaches at prominent retailers such as Target and Neiman Marcus demonstrated that too many organizations still falsely equate PCI compliance with comprehensive security. Fully compliant organizations are being hit with attacks that compromise payment card data on a regular basis.
Blog

How “Smash and Grab” Compromises IBM i

During an audit a few years ago, I revealed to the client’s security team that corporate payroll information on every employee, including the CEO, was being archived in an output queue (called PAYROLL) for weeks at a time. Due to poor configuration, this information was accessible to every employee.
Blog

PCI Compliance Takeaways from the Target Data Breach

Smack in the middle of the holiday shopping season, Target was hit with a malware attack that infiltrated its point-of-sale systems and enabled the theft of credit card numbers and personally identifiable information from more than 70 million shoppers.
Blog

What is the Value of SIEM?

As is often the case in the technology industry, the details surrounding security information and event management can be a little unclear. While vendors may offer solutions of varying complexity, there is still a basic idea behind most SIEM products…
Blog

What to Know about the New NIST Cybersecurity Framework

Compiled with significant input from the private sector, the Cybersecurity Framework isn’t a prescriptive compliance document and instead gives companies significant leeway in how they use it to inform their security strategies. As a relatively new source of guidance, its implications for regulated industries aren’t clear yet.
Article

The Modern Alternative to Authority Adoption

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?
Article

Stay on Top of Security with Security Scan

Security and compliance adherence has elevated in criticality over the past few years and has now taken its rightful place as a primary IT initiative, alongside virtualization and disaster preparedness. The necessity for better data protection has landed front-and-center in the public eye following some of the largest data breaches on record.
Article

The Road To Security Starts with a Security Scan

Sometimes, there are known vulnerabilities that clearly need to be mitigated as soon as possible—such as application users running with *ALLOBJ special authority. But, often there isn’t a thorough understanding of what’s wrong with a server’s configuration or what should be addressed first.
Blog

Your Biggest Challenge to IBM i User Onboarding

As companies bounce back from recession and place a stronger emphasis on digitally-driven innovations, IT departments are finally receiving the funds they need to hire qualified, new colleagues who can lighten the workload. However, the first order of business will be getting these recent hires up to speed.
Blog

Your Biggest Threat Since Edward Snowden

When Edward Snowden leaked the details of the National Security Agency’s PRISM program to the media, it resulted in a large public outcry and lot of unwanted attention. This doesn’t mean that system administrators should treat all of their contractors as the next Snowden, but it highlights the importance of ensuring that contractors, as well as employees, are sufficiently monitored and aware of...
Guide

The Business Case for Focusing on IBM i Security: Close Security Gaps to Avoid a Data Breach

The cost of a data breach can throw businesses into turmoil and derail careers. And that cost continues to rise. The potential for significant damage is massive on servers like IBM's Power Systems servers running IBM i, because they’re widely used for database management, financial data processing, and business intelligence—all mission-critical applications and workloads. While servers running IBM...
Guide

Protecting Your Data—How Much Security Is Enough?

As organizations become increasingly aware of the need to protect their data, the question that needs to be answered is how much security is enough? Unfortunately, that’s one of those “it depends” questions. Each organization must consider their own requirements before confidently answering that question. This document discusses those considerations.
Case Study

Hershey Entertainment Quickly Encrypts Credit Card Data with Powertech Encryption for IBM i

Hershey Entertainment & Resorts is a privately held company located in the tourist center of Hershey, Pennsylvania, and has entertainment, resort and commercial divisions. Earlier this year, Hershey learned that because the entertainment and resort operations accept credit cards for payment, they needed the information stored by their box office ticketing and reservations applications to be...
Case Study

Field-level Encryption Helps Retail Chain Achieve PCI Compliance

Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores, a retail travel stop chain with over 210 locations in 34 U.S. states, processes approximately 200,000 credit card transactions on a daily basis. Needing to meet PCI standards, Love’s found in Powertech Encryption for IBM i a product to encrypt credit card numbers in a way that would satisfy PCI compliance auditors. “We need to be able to access credit card...