Re: iSeries Security in Computerworld

Certainly not a situation unique to our platform, but one that could be
solved if software authors would place more emphasis on its importance..

Jim Franz

To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 5:19 PM
Subject: RE: iSeries Security in Computerworld

I think one of the biggest problems is "vendor enforced" holes in
security.  For instance, one client has a popular ERP package that was
developed before network attachment to System i (actually, at the time
S/38).  So security is all at the application level, and a common owner
owns all the data files.

This underlying security model is carried forward, so now, even though
the ERP has its own Client/Server implementation and users routinely do
things like downloading files into Excel, the objects are still owned by
one user with all authority to them, and everyone is pretty much a
member of that user's group.

That of course means someone with a legit signon can do things like see
data that they couldn't via the green screen app, and, what's worse,
alter or delete data (once had a developer drop a table in production
instead of test in error!).

The answer they use is exit point programs, but this adds a layer of
admin and is not completely bulletproof.  Natively, though, it's hard to
enforce read write through the green screen app, but read only to some
files and exclude from others via other means without exit point
programs.

What makes it all the more difficult is the vendor can offer little
guidance on what files users can safely be locked out of.

Certainly not a situation unique to our platform, but one that could be
solved if software authors would place more emphasis on its importance.



Jeff Carey
Acxiom Corp.
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