General Session: The Security Gap

In 2012 a z/OS breach was discovered. Hackers in Cambodia had full control of a Swedish government’s mainframe for 3+ years. Using multiple different techniques they had learned on this breach they then preceded to breach bank & university mainframes. Culminating in trying to transfer one million dollars from Denmark to accounts in Cambodia. Very few people have heard about this outside of Denmark or Sweden, but in countries the mainframe, and IBM’s, security posture has come under fire. Many people believe this platform to be secure by default but that’s not always the case, and while the IT security world has grown, their knowledge of this platform has not kept up. Come learn what you can do to help bridge the divide between the mainframe world and the security world, how to embrace hacker culture for the betterment of z/OS and what that community thinks of this ‘legacy’ system. He might also talk a little about his involvement in that Swedish government breach.