Or: We need to talk about mainframe hacking There’s an elephant in the room says Mark Wilson. It’s mainframe-sized, at serious risk of being hacked, and its name is Z. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That was US president Franklin D. Roosevelt at his...
In today’s connected world and with security high on the agenda, IT people across the enterprise have to understand each other. Mainframers need to be able to talk to non-mainframers with clarity, and vice-versa. Managers in the enterprise need to understand both...
This has been a fine summer. And I’m not talking about the weather: I mean the whopping fines proposed for infringements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by Marriott Hotels and British Airways, followed by an even bigger fine in the US for Equifax –...
It’s an ill wind that blows no good, and profits nobody. That old nautical phrase popped into my head when I first heard about the SolarWinds supply chain compromise. We’ll return to that later, and its implications. But first I wanted to take a look at a few of the...
It’s high time we acknowledged that mainframe data loss is far more than a security problem. It’s fundamentally a business problem. As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. This applies to data loss and cyber attacks as much as anything else in life. If...
Vertali launches New to Mainframes (NTM) program The results of a survey by RSH Consulting, Inc. made sobering reading this January. Far from being a wake-up call concerning the worrying lack of trained mainframers, particularly in security, it appears the industry...
“If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, you will be hacked.” That was according to Richard Clarke, former special advisor on cybersecurity to the US President. He added, “What’s more, you deserve to be hacked,” which does seem a little harsh. Maybe...
Earlier this year, I presented sessions at SHARE New Orleans on mainframe security, hacking, and security assessments. These spiked quite a bit of interest among attendees. In particular, a conversation kicked off with several leading mainframe-focused software...
Mark Wilson reflects on the findings of a recent mainframe survey, explaining why security should be the number one priority, and why we need to start talking about complexity and observability. I read with interest the highlights of the Arcati Mainframe survey 2024,...
‘Cyber resilience’ seems to be discussed everywhere these days, in light of continuing cyberattacks, and recent concerns that organizations may not be ready to meet the requirements of the Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA) from January 2025. In essence, cyber...
