ACF2 vs IBM Resource Access Control Facility vs IBM Security zSecure comparison

CA ACF2™ for z/OS provides innovative, comprehensive security for your business transaction environments—including Linux, UNIX and z/OS on System z—helping you realize the reliability, scalability and cost-effectiveness of the mainframe. CA ACF2 provides an Advanced Authentication Mainframe feature, system entry validation, resource control, auditability, accountability, and administrative control. In conjunction with distributed security solutions from CA Technologies, CA ACF2 provides mobile-to-mainframe enterprise class security and compliance management.

ACF2 Features

ACF2 offers some of the following features:

• Authentication: ACF2 is used for authenticating users and granting them access to profiles and various resources on the mainframe.

• Access Control: The solution provides resource control, allowing administrators to control who can access specific mainframe resources.

• Logging and Monitoring: Organizations can easily track and monitor activities on the mainframe. This feature enables the creation of audit trails for follow-up and helps with security analysis.

• Metrics and Reporting: ACF2 allows the configuration of tools to produce different types of metrics and reports. These can then be used by senior management for making informed security decisions.

• Comprehensive Security: The solution provides comprehensive security for mainframe environments, ensuring the protection of valuable data assets. It offers advanced authentication, system entry validation, and administrative control.

• Streamlined Administration: It simplifies the administration of mainframe security by providing streamlined management capabilities. ACF2 also enables administrators to monitor and adjust security policies and accommodate various organizational structures.

• Scalability: ACF2 offers reliable and scalable security, allowing businesses to expand their mainframe environments while maintaining a high level of protection.

• Compliance Management: Organizations can meet compliance requirements by providing auditability, accountability, and comprehensive security controls.

• Integration: ACF2 can integrate with distributed security solutions from CA Technologies, providing enterprise-class security and compliance management for mobile-to-mainframe environments.

• Flexibility: ACF2 allows flexibility in adapting security policies to accommodate different organizational structures and requirements.

ACF2 Benefits

Some of the benefits that ACF2 provides are:

• Enhanced security and resilience

• Streamlined administration

• Reliable and scalable security

• Comprehensive audit capabilities

• Cost-effectiveness

• Integration with other security solutions

• Simplified identity and access management

• Compliance management

• Efficient monitoring and reporting

Reviews from Real Users

According to an IT Examiner at a financial services firm with 10,000+ employees, "ACF2 is extremely beneficial for the mainframe environment, and it is at the forefront for security and resilience."

In 1976, IBM set the standard for security products when RACF was introduced!

From the beginning, the RACF Development Team has proudly brought you RACF, the premier product for securing your most valuable corporate data. Working closely with your operating system's existing features, IBM's award-winning Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) licensed program provides improved security for an installation's data. RACF protects your vital system resources and controls what users can do on the operating system.

You decide which resources you want to protect and which users need access to them. RACF provides the functions that let you:

• identify and verify system users
• identify, classify, and protect system resources
• authorize the users who need access to the resources you've protected
• control the means of access to these resources
• log and report unauthorized attempts at gaining access to the system and to the protected resources
• administer security to meet your installation's security goals

IBM Resource Access Control Facility Features

Resource Access Control Facility offers the following features:

• Access Control: RACF allows administrators to define access controls for various system resources, including datasets, programs, transactions, and system commands. It enables granular control over who can access specific resources and what actions they can perform.

• User Authentication: The solution supports multiple authentication methods, such as passwords, digital certificates, smart cards, and biometrics. It ensures that only authorized users with valid credentials can access the system.

• Authorization: Users are provided with fine-grained authorization capabilities, allowing administrators to assign and manage permissions for individual users or groups. It enables the definition of resource-level and data-level access controls based on user roles and responsibilities.

• Auditing and Logging: RACF generates detailed audit logs that capture security events, including successful and failed access attempts, resource modifications, and policy violations. These logs are essential for compliance auditing, security analysis, and incident investigation.

• Secure Password Management: The product includes features for enforcing password policies, such as minimum length, complexity requirements, and password expiration. It supports password encryption and hashing to protect sensitive credentials.

• Encryption and Data Protection: The solution provides encryption capabilities to protect sensitive data stored on mainframe systems. It supports encryption algorithms and cryptographic protocols for safeguarding data confidentiality and integrity.

• Integration with External Authentication Systems: Users can integrate it with external authentication systems, such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Active Directory, allowing them to leverage existing directories for authentication purposes.

• Resource Monitoring and Control: It enables real-time monitoring and control of resource accesses, as well as providing alerts and notifications for suspicious activities, allowing administrators to respond promptly to potential security threats.

• Compliance and Regulatory Support: RACF helps organizations meet regulatory compliance requirements by providing the necessary controls, audit trails, and reporting capabilities. It supports compliance frameworks such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

• Administration and Management: The solution offers a comprehensive set of administration and management tools for configuring, maintaining, and monitoring the security environment. It provides utilities for managing user accounts, defining security policies, and performing system-wide security administration tasks.

IBM Resource Access Control Facility Benefits

Some of the benefits that IBM RACF can offer its users are:

• Enhanced security

• Access control management

• Authorization and authentication capabilities

• Centralized control over resource access

• Fine-grained access control policies

• Audit trail and monitoring features

• Compliance with regulatory requirements

• Protection against unauthorized access

• Segregation of duties

• Efficient resource allocation and utilization

IBM Security zSecure V2.1.1 suite consists of multiple individual products designed to help you administer your mainframe security, monitor for threats, enforce policy compliance, audit usage and configurations, and assist in compliance management and audit reporting.

IBM Security zSecure Admin, IBM Security zSecure Visual, and IBM Security zSecure CICS Toolkit together provide administrative, provisioning, and management components that can significantly reduce administration time, effort, and costs, and help improve productivity and response time, as well as help reduce training time for new administrators.

IBM Security zSecure Audit, IBM Security zSecure Alert, and IBM Security zSecure Command Verifier together provide security policy enforcement, audit, monitoring, and compliance management capability. These offerings help ease the burden of compliance audits, help reduce the time and costs of performing compliance and monitoring, can improve security and incident handling, and can increase overall operational effectiveness.

IBM Security zSecure Adapters for QRadar SIEM V2.1.1, new to the suite, collects, formats, and sends enriched mainframe System Management Facility (SMF) audit records to IBM Security QRadar SIEM to be included in the enterprise-wide integrated security information and event management (SIEM), log management, anomaly detection, incident forensics, and configuration and vulnerability management.

IBM Security zSecure Features

IBM Security zSecure offers the following features:

• Centralized Security Administration: IBM Security zSecure allows users to centrally manage and administer mainframe security configurations, user accounts, and access controls across multiple systems, simplifying the complex task of security administration and ensuring consistent security policies.

• Auditing and Compliance Monitoring: The suite provides comprehensive auditing and compliance monitoring capabilities, capturing and analyzing security events, generating detailed audit trails. It assists organizations in meeting regulatory compliance requirements and internal security policies.

• Real-time Monitoring and Alerting: Users can leverage real-time monitoring and alerting features to proactively detect and respond to security incidents or suspicious activities on the mainframe, enabling timely incident response and reducing the impact of potential threats.

• Security Event Visualization: With its graphical user interface, IBM Security zSecure offers convenient representations of security events, system settings, and more. The solution provides users with an intuitive and user-friendly interface for easier analysis, reporting, and visualization of security-related information.

• Command Verification and Policy Enforcement: IBM Security zSecure's Command Verifier automatically validates and audits system commands issued by privileged users, helping enforce security policies and reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized changes.

• Compliance Reporting: Users can generate detailed compliance reports using IBM Security zSecure to demonstrate adherence to regulatory requirements, industry standards, and internal security policies.

• Integration with SIEM Solutions: IBM Security zSecure integrates seamlessly with Security Information and Event Management solutions, allowing for the correlation and analysis of mainframe security events alongside events from other enterprise systems.

• User Behavior Analytics: IBM Security zSecure incorporates advanced analytics capabilities to detect anomalies in user behavior, helping identify potential security threats or insider risks through behavior profiling and anomaly detection algorithms.

• Secure Configuration Assessment: The solution enables users to assess and validate the security configurations of mainframe systems, ensuring compliance with best practices and industry standards while identifying and addressing potential security weaknesses or vulnerabilities.

• Secure File Transfer: IBM Security zSecure facilitates secure file transfers between mainframe systems and external entities, employing encryption and secure protocols to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of data during transit.

• Mainframe Vulnerability Assessment: Users of the solution can conduct vulnerability assessments of mainframe systems using IBM Security zSecure, identifying and remediating potential security weaknesses and vulnerabilities to maintain a robust security posture.

• Mainframe Forensics: IBM Security zSecure provides capabilities for mainframe forensics, enabling detailed analysis and investigation of security incidents and unauthorized activities, aiding in incident response, and supporting post-incident forensic investigations.

IBM Security zSecure Benefits

Users of IBM Security zSecure will experience the following benefits:

• Simplified security administration

• Improved access control management

• Comprehensive auditing and compliance monitoring

• Real-time monitoring and alerting

• Seamless integration with SIEM solutions

• Advanced user behavior analytics

• Integration with Identity and Access Management systems

• Role-based access control (RBAC)

• Mainframe vulnerability assessment