Mainframe Security with Event Management for Enhanced Protection

What Is Event Management And Its Role In Mainframe Security?

Computer event management refers to the identification of certain occurrences in computing systems, the evaluation of their potential impact and the planning of appropriate responses. Getting back to the protection of mainframes, it is necessary to note that event management provides an opportunity to analyze, detect, and eliminate security events in real-time. The EM solutions are designed to gather, consolidate and correlate security-related information from different sources and use it to offer the mainframe security situation and threats that may be of interest to the security personnel.

Mainframe security event management is the process of handling a set of events occurring in the mainframe security environment which include login attempts, changes in system configuration, and other network anomalies. This information is then used to determine the security breaches, or violations, and therefore initiate the responses, which may entail the sending of the alerts, auto-correction, or passing of the security events to the security officers for further handling.

Advantages For The Use Of Event Management In The Mainframe Security

Integrating event management into your mainframe security strategy can provide numerous benefits, including:

Improved Threat Detection and Response: It is, therefore, possible for event management systems to collect data on security-related events in real-time – this would assist in the recognition of possible threats before an attack is full-blown and the minimization of the effects of the attack on the enterprise.
Enhanced Compliance and Audit Capabilities: Advantages of Event Management Systems include: The system can assist you in ensuring that you have complied with the standard set by the industry in as much as event management is concerned this is because the system can provide you with records of activities that has taken place in the network as far as security is concerned which can be very useful in as much as proving the effectiveness of the security measures that you put in place in your network is concerned.
Increased Operational Efficiency: The automation of security events can greatly assist your security team in dealing with the sheer amount of security events that a company usually receives by helping them filter out the noise and focus on the more pressing issues that your company may face.
Holistic Security Visibility: There is information that event management solutions can collect data from a great number of security applications and systems, and also to provide a possibility to identify the most significant mainframe security issues and the corresponding responses.
Proactive Risk Mitigation: This means that the event management system can evaluate historical security event information and get trends in an attempt to look for where potential security threats are going to arise and be capitalized on.

Essentials Of Mainframe Security Events Management

Effective event management for mainframe security typically includes the following key components:

Event Collection: Compiling information from different systems, applications, mainframe logs, network devices, security tools and applications and other relevant sources to generate a pool of event data.
Event Normalization: The conversion of the event data collected into a normalized format to simplify the analysis and correlation process concerning other data sources.
Event Correlation: Employing the methods of analyzing the series of related events and their correlation to detect patterns, outliers and possible security threats.
Automated Response: Introducing pre-defined policies and procedures, which define how the system should react to security incidents, for example, by raising an alarm, starting an incident handling procedure, or performing an appropriate remediation action.
Reporting and Analytics: Enabling security analysts to get a complete view of their mainframe environment and gain insights, trends, and context into what is happening to make better security decisions.
Integrations: Enabling event management solutions to be integrated with other security technologies and software like SIEM systems to improve the security environment.

Challenges In Mainframe Security

While event management can significantly improve mainframe security, organizations may face several challenges in effectively implementing and maintaining these solutions, including:

Data Complexity: Mainframe environments tend to produce considerable amounts of disparate security-related data, and it can be quite challenging to properly consolidate, standardize, and process.
Legacy Infrastructure: Implementing event management solutions into current mainframe environments involves the integration with mainframe architectures, which can consist of legacy systems and applications; these implementation processes are known to be lengthy.
Skill Gaps: Managing and enhancing the event management systems to support mainframe security may be complex and may demand competency in particular skills; a scarce commodity in some organizations.
Regulatory Compliance: The problem is that it is challenging to ensure that the majority of the processes and controls related to event management meet the existing industry regulations and standards including PCI DSS, HIPAA, or GDPR.
Resource Constraints: A fully developed and sustained event management solution for mainframe security could cost a bulk of the organizational resources, both capital and manpower, thus a potential limitation.

Effective Strategies For The Adoption Of Event Management In Mainframe Security

To overcome these challenges and maximize the benefits of event management for mainframe security, consider the following best practices:

Develop a Comprehensive Security Strategy: Integrate your event management implementation with a clear vision of the mainframe security objectives that are relevant to your organization’s threats, regulations, and business opportunities.

Prioritize Data Collection and Normalization: Determine which data points are most pertinent to security concerns and make certain that the event management solution can properly gather, parse, and consolidate these data inputs.

Implement Automated Threat Detection and Response: Take advantage of the features of the event management system so that the identification of security threats and consequent actions can be done automatically, thus relieving the security team of such cumbersome tasks.

Ensure Scalability and Flexibility: Choose an event management solution that is capable of handling large numbers of events and events related to your mainframe security, as well as one that easily integrates with updates in security.

Foster Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing: Mainframe, security, IT operations, and other key business areas should work together to coordinate event management strategies with the organization’s goals.

Continuously Monitor and Optimize: It is recommended to periodically analyze the effectiveness of various processes related to event management, using recommendations of security analysts, results of compliance audits, and recommendations of industry professionals.

Conclusion

Mainframes are the central processing units of most large corporations and businesses, therefore, protecting these valuable resources is a prime concern. Mainframe security is not a standalone process, but rather a continuous element of the total management of your organization’s IT events, when you incorporate event management into your mainframe security system, you can improve security processes, discover concerns and threats more efficiently, and protect your enterprise’s valuable data and crucial applications.