Can my mainframe catch a virus?
Published on July 15, 2013
The short answer? Maybe. Here's some things you shouldn't sneeze at when pondering mainframes and viruses. Despite the mainframe's reputation for security and its seemingly impenetrable nature, companies should not naively pass on protecting their systems from viruses. There have been no high-profile reports of…
Four Encryption Mistakes to Avoid
Published on July 10, 2013
Data encryption is an important component of any security strategy, whether on a mainframe or any other computing system. It obfuscates data from people and machines alike, and provides an incredible level of protection against hackers and data thieves. Are you doing encryption right? Here…
Self-Auditing Your Mainframe for Potential Threats
Published on July 8, 2013
Mainframes are big complex systems. Housing and managing the data stored and processed on these systems involves many access points and lots of risks. Because of these numerous risks, it is important to periodically assess the security measures your company has in place to make…
RACF — Your Mainframe Who’s Who
Published on July 1, 2013
Secure passwords are a great first step to protecting the data on your mainframe, but you must ask yourself: who has access to them? Even the most creative passwords and secure authentication methods are useless if the wrong people are granted access or have profiles…
Latest ASPG Whitepaper Educates on Multi-Factor Authentication
Published on June 25, 2013
The latest whitepaper from Advanced Software Products Group (ASPG) is now released and available for download. Aimed at readers new to multi-factor authentication, the whitepaper provides a high-level overview of what multi-factor authentication is, why it’s important, and how it’s commonly implemented. With an average…
Dealing with DASD fragmentation
Published on June 10, 2013
With the vast amounts of storage space available on mainframes and their associated direct access storage drives (DASD), there's no need to worry about drive defragmentation or space allocation, right? Right? Wrong. The huge volume of data stored on many businesses' DASD systems make it…
Mainframes vs. Supercomputers
Published on June 5, 2013
Although we all think our mainframes are super, mainframes and supercomputers are different on some fundamental levels. Here's why. Both mainframes and supercomputers push the limits of what can be accomplished through computing. They are both large and powerful machines, but they are not the…
ReACT Password Reset Software Ups Security with Multi-Factor Authentication
Published on June 4, 2013
Advanced Software Product Group's enterprise self-service password reset tool ReACT now features multi-factor authentication, raising the bar for Help Desk password reset software. ReACT is a self-service password reset and synchronization software tool for the enterprise that allows users to reset their own password without…
Security Beyond the Front Door
Published on May 23, 2013
In the early years of mainframe security, keeping unauthorized people from sitting down at a terminal was enough to protect the data on the mainframe. As time went on, mainframe security matured to the degree that the data was considered safe as long as its…
Got multi-factor authentication?
Published on May 14, 2013
Usernames and passwords are the most common way to secure access to software accounts and data. But passwords don't work -- at least not as well as they should, and especially not the way they used to. Sophisticated phishing schemes, brute force attacks, social engineering,…