Auditor vs Cleanup comparison

CA Auditor for z/OS (CA Auditor) is a powerful mainframe tool architected to help you achieve and maintain compliance with the myriad regulatory requirements that govern your business and IT systems. It enables you to perform an automated technical review of the system, hardware and software environment and to identify integrity exposures in z/OS. CA Auditor is designed to help you simplify auditing activities and eliminate manual processes so that users without in-depth experience can perform an extensive operating system review.

Auditor helps organizations ensure the security, integrity, and regulatory compliance of their mainframe environments. It provides comprehensive auditing capabilities that monitor and track user activity, system changes, and data access on the mainframe. By analyzing and reporting on these activities, Auditor helps organizations detect and respond to security threats, identify compliance violations, and investigate potential breaches or unauthorized activities.

Auditor Features

Auditor offers the following features:

• Comprehensive Auditing: CA Auditor provides extensive auditing capabilities to monitor and track user activities, system changes, and data access on the mainframe.

• Real-time Monitoring and Alerting: It offers real-time monitoring of critical events, allowing users to receive alerts and notifications when specific security incidents or policy violations occur.

• Customizable Audit Policies: Users can define and customize audit policies based on their specific security and compliance requirements. This allows them to focus on the areas that are most critical to their organization.

• Compliance Reporting: CA Auditor offers a wide range of pre-defined compliance reports that help users demonstrate adherence to regulatory requirements such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, and GDPR. Reports can then be customized and scheduled for automatic generation.

• Forensic Analysis: The solution includes powerful search and analysis capabilities that enable users to perform detailed forensic investigations. This helps in identifying the root cause of security incidents and understanding the full scope of unauthorized activities.

• Audit Trail Archiving and Retention: CA Auditor allows users to archive and retain audit trail data for long-term storage and compliance purposes. This ensures that historical audit information is available for future analysis and audit reviews.

• Integration with SIEM Solutions: The solution can integrate with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, allowing users to consolidate and correlate mainframe audit data with data from other IT systems.

• Role-Based Access Control: Users can define access controls and assign roles to ensure that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive audit data and system configurations.

• Interactive Query Interface: CA Auditor offers an interactive query interface that allows users to perform ad-hoc searches and queries on the audit data, providing flexibility in analyzing specific events or patterns of activity.

• Audit Data Visualization: The solution includes visual representation capabilities, such as charts and graphs, to present audit data in a more intuitive and easily understandable format. This helps in identifying trends, anomalies, and patterns quickly.

• Support for Mainframe Environment: CA Auditor is specifically designed for IBM's z/OS operating system, ensuring compatibility and optimized performance in mainframe environments.

Auditor Benefits

Some of the benefits that Auditor provides are:

• Enhanced security and compliance

• Comprehensive monitoring and tracking of user activities

• Real-time alerts for security incidents

• Customizable audit policies

• Pre-defined compliance reporting

• Powerful forensic analysis capabilities

• Integration with SIEM solutions

• Role-based access control

• Interactive query interface

• Visual representation of audit data

CA Cleanup for z/OS (CA Cleanup) reduces the effort and pressure associated with maintaining current regulatory, statutory and audit requirements. It does this by removing obsolete, unused, redundant and excessive access rights through easily automated, virtually unattended and continuous cleanup of mainframe security databases CA ACF2TM, CA Top Secret and IBM RACF.

CA Cleanup Features

CA Cleanup offers the following features:

• Security Policy Management: The software allows administrators to define and manage security policies for mainframe resources. This includes setting rules for user access and password requirements, and defining group-based access controls.

• Access Control: CA Cleanup for z/OS enables granular control over who can access specific mainframe resources. It supports various access control methods, including resource-level security, program authorization, and transaction authorization.

• User Authentication: The software provides robust user authentication mechanisms, such as password-based authentication, RACF pass tickets, digital certificates, and more. It ensures that only authenticated users can access the mainframe system.

• User Provisioning and De-Provisioning: It facilitates the creation and removal of user accounts on the mainframe. Administrators can easily manage user profiles, assign appropriate access privileges, and revoke access when needed.

• Auditing and Reporting: CA Cleanup for z/OS offers extensive auditing capabilities to monitor user activities and track changes made to security settings. It generates comprehensive reports for compliance purposes, including user access reports, audit trail reports, and security violation reports.

• Resource Monitoring and Protection: The software continuously monitors mainframe resources for unauthorized access attempts, suspicious activities, or security breaches. It provides real-time alerts and takes proactive measures to prevent unauthorized access.

• Integration with Mainframe Security Systems: CA Cleanup for z/OS integrates with existing mainframe security systems like IBM RACF (Resource Access Control Facility) to leverage their features and enhance overall security management.

• Compliance Management: The solution helps organizations meet regulatory compliance requirements, such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR. It provides tools and reports to demonstrate compliance and supports security audits.

• Customization and Automation: Administrators can customize security policies and settings according to their organization's requirements. The software also supports automation through scripting and APIs for streamlined management.

• Centralized Management: CA Cleanup for z/OS offers a centralized management console or interface for efficient administration of security policies and controls across the mainframe environment.

CA Cleanup Benefits

Using CA Cleanup has the following benefits:

• Enhanced mainframe security

• Control over user access to resources

• Protection against unauthorized access

• Auditing and tracking of user activities

• Compliance with regulatory requirements

• Streamlined user provisioning and de-provisioning

• Real-time alerts for security incidents

• Integration with existing mainframe security systems

• Customization to meet organizational needs

• Centralized management of security policies