SecureSphere Database Gateway for z/OS Monitors All Activity by Privileged Users, Network Users, and Applications on DB2 Platform

Redwood Shores, Calif., Feb. 24, 2009 – Imperva®, the leader in application data security, today announced SecureSphere Database Gateway for z/OS (DGZ), which provides comprehensive monitoring, auditing, and protection for DB2 databases running on z/OS mainframes. Imperva DGZ monitors local and network activity by privileged users, non-privileged users, and applications to prevent data loss, fraud, and automate regulatory compliance reporting.

According to a Forrester Research report, “Today, database security is a lot more challenging than it was a decade ago largely because compliance requirements are more pressing and more complex. Enterprises are dealing with tougher regulatory compliance requirements such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act, and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). In addition, since compliance requirements do not offer guidelines, confusion exists around what needs to be done to make databases more secure in order to comply.”
– Forrester Research, “A New Role Is Emerging Within IT: Database Security Analyst (DSA)”, 4 April 2008

Mainframe environments, which contain the crown jewels of an organization and support transactional and financial enterprise applications, present unique security and audit challenges since they cannot afford downtime or system latency. SecureSphere DGZ provides comprehensive security and an iron-clad audit trail covering all paths into and out of DB2 databases on the z/OS platform. Network activity is captured directly by SecureSphere, while local activity by privileged users and administrators is collected through the integration of IBM Audit Management Expert (AME), a native tool specifically developed for IBM z/OS environments.

“Mainframes typically house an organization’s most critical IT assets – sensitive data, financial and human resources applications, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems,” said Amichai Shulman, CTO of Imperva. “Traditional approaches for monitoring and auditing activity, especially by privileged users, on mainframe databases often require installing agents that can impact performance and availability. SecureSphere Database Gateway for z/OS combines native and very stable IBM technology to capture local activity with Imperva’s award-winning network-based security platform to provide complete visibility and protection for DB2 on the mainframe.”

360 Degree Visibility for Compliance and Protection

To automate regulatory compliance tasks, SecureSphere DGZ maintains a complete and tamper proof record of all activity on DB2 databases. The SecureSphere DGZ audit trail includes details on schema changes (DDL), data changes (DML), privilege granting and revoking (DCL), and security exceptions such as failed logins and SQL errors. The audit trail is supported by a powerful reporting engine that includes regulation-specific reports for PCI DSS, SOX, HIPAA, as well as customizable analytics.

To prevent data breaches and data loss, SecureSphere DGZ monitors inbound and outbound DB2 traffic for suspicious activity. Network-based traffic, including queries and responses from web applications, is inspected and audited by SecureSphere, while local activity is collected by IBM AME. These integrated capabilities provide comprehensive visibility for auditing activity from any source, with minimal impact on monitored z/OS systems.

When deployed together, the SecureSphere DGZ and web application firewall (WAF) is the only integrated platform that can correlate and protect against attacks that span multiple application tiers, such as a complex SQL injection string.

Availability

The Imperva SecureSphere Database Gateway for z/OS is available now from Imperva and its business partners worldwide.

About Imperva

Imperva, the Data Security leader, enables a complete security lifecycle for business databases and the applications that use them. Over 4,500 of the world’s leading enterprises, government organizations, and managed service providers rely on Imperva to prevent sensitive data theft, protect against data breaches, secure applications, and ensure data confidentiality. The award-winning Imperva SecureSphere is the only solution that delivers full activity monitoring from the database to the accountable application user and is recognized for its overall ease of management and deployment. For more information, visit www.imperva.com.

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Imperva and SecureSphere are registered trademarks of Imperva, Inc. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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