Change Management

We'll be undergoing an internal controls IT audit later this year and like a lot of small shops, our MIS staff has *ALLOBJ special authority in their user profiles. In addition, all our AMFLIBx files have authority for *PUBLIC as *CHANGE. Because our users don't have a command line and we control ODBC updates through an exit point package, *PUBLIC having *CHANGE to files isn't an issue. But the MIS staff having *ALLOBJ to production files and being able to DFU any one of them is an issue.

I believe there're at least 3 ways we can approach this:

1. Implement object level authority. (This is something management really doesn't want to consider).
2. Run a nightly program to GRTOBJAUT of *EXCLUDE for every object in our production libraries for every MIS user profile. In addition, remove *ALLOBJ special authority from the MIS user profiles.
3. Implement a third party package like Authority Broker from the PowerTech Group.

Have any of you had a similar security set-up as we have and had to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations or something similar? If so, I'd like your input on the three approaches above or any other approach you might recommend.

Thanks in advance,


Bryan Burns
iSeries Specialist
ECHO, Incorporated
Lake Zurich, Illinois