• PowerTech AV Automatically Detects Ransomware Activity

  June 29, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are concerned about ransomware attacks may be interested in a new release of PowerTech Antivirus from HelpSystems, which can automatically detect ransomware activity on the IBM i system and block it before it can cause damage. There’s also a nifty new “canary file” feature that will hopefully keep IBM i users from falling down the coal mine.

  PowerTech Antivirus, which formerly carried the Stand Guard Anti-Virus label, was originally developed by Bytware to detect and prevent viruses from infecting the IFS on IBM i. The software, which HelpSystems obtained in a 2008 acquisition, uses an …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Good Security Is Just As Important As Good Code

  June 13, 2022 Pauline Brazil Ayala

  Can my IBM i really be hit with a virus? Can it be hit with ransomware?

  These are the questions I regularly get from clients as a security expert with more than 20 years of experience. With the pervasiveness of these ransomware threats and sophisticated cyberattacks that we’re seeing in recent times, it only makes sense that we pay close attention to these threats.

  Security on the IBM i is a complex topic, and it is not one that is easily tackled with a few bullet points and tweaks of systems settings. Just like programming on the platform, for that …

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• Guru: Backup to an NAS using RSYNC

  February 14, 2022 Dan Devoe

  Like many small shops, we use a simple tape drive to backup most of our libraries and the contents of the IFS. Each workday, the tape would be changed and the previous tape taken home by someone in IT in case of a disaster.

  But then, COVID hit – there was no one in the office to switch tapes and the same tape was being used to perform nightly backups. What if we discovered a problem with the data from two nights ago? Ordinarily, we would restore one or more libraries or files from the appropriate tape.

  I set up …

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• IBM i Community Predictions for 2022, Part 2

  January 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  The new year is upon us, which means it’s time for predictions. We continue where we left off on Monday with our second installment of predictions from the IBM i community.

  The way Fresche Solutions Chief Product Officer Marcel Sarrasin sees it, 2022 will be a period of heightened competition in the business jungle.

  “Technology advancements and changing markets will drive new competitive threats in 2022, creating the urgent need for new digital solutions to help companies thrive, survive and grow,” Sarrasin says. “Focus will be on new IT products and applications that will deliver improved business processes, pave the …

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• IBM i Community Predictions For 2022, Part 1

  January 10, 2022 Alex Woodie

  While the month and year ostensibly are just values in the date field, when the calendar flips over from December to January, things feel different. There’s a greater sense of hope and optimism for what the new year will bring. Coming off another calamitous year filled with COVID-19, perhaps it’s we need that even more so this year.

  It has become an IT Jungle tradition to ask members of the IBM i community at the start of the year for their predictions. This year is no different, and so we’ll kick off the first part of our (most likely) two-part …

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• Guru: Content Assist Plus in Run SQL Scripts

  November 29, 2021 Paul Tuohy

  By now, you should be well aware that Run SQL Scripts provides content assist (promoting) for Select statements (see Guru: ACS 1.1.8.3 Content Assist Includes Prompt For SQL! ). But did you know that you can also use content assist for stored procedures, table functions and parameters? Let’s see how it works, using some of the Integrated File System (IFS) procedures and functions provided by IBM i Services.

  Prompting a Stored Procedure

  Open Run SQL Scripts, type in:

  call qsys2.
  

  Then press F4 (or Ctrl+Space). You will be presented with a list of all the stored procedures in the schema …

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• Ransomware Attacks Hit Closer To Home

  July 12, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Fifteen hundred organizations around the world had their data locked up in the latest ransomware attack, including grocery store chains and schools. It’s unclear if any IBM i shops were included in the attack, which a Russian hacking group claimed credit for. But it’s clear that ransomware is a growing threat to all organizations, including IBM i shops.

  On July 2, as hundreds of millions of Americans hunkered down for the long Independence Day holiday weekend, hackers using the REvil were just getting started. The Russian-affiliated hacking group had already done the hard work of exploiting a five-year-old security flaw …

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• Security Checks Drive Consulting Biz for Briteskies

  June 14, 2021 Alex Woodie

  With high-profile ransomware attacks becoming the norm and calls for a federal cybersecurity department gaining steam, there’s a distinct uneasiness when it comes to the security of corporate computer systems. That uptick in awareness is helping to drive business for Briteskies, the Cleveland, Ohio-based IT consultancy that has made IBM i security a cornerstone of its business.

  Briteskies was founded in 2000 primarily as a JD Edwards specialist for organizations in the Great Lakes region. Over the years, the company has expanded into other niches, including Magento e-commerce systems, custom RPG development, and computer security.

  The market for IBM i …

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• Malware Threats and Cyber-Recovery on IBM i

  May 26, 2021 Brian Barth

  Cyber threats have evolved from the traditional vectors of theft and direct attacks to more financial driven cyber destruction and extortion, especially via ransomware. Hospitals, manufacturers, universities and financial institutions have all been attacked in the last year, and the rate of attacks is increasing as networks become more accessible to support remote workers. The Colonial Pipeline attack has demonstrated that even the critical infrastructure that supports our supply chains is not invulnerable.

  In 2021, more than three quarters of attacks are financially motivated, and over half of those attacks are ransomware – an attack in which files are typically …

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• Guru: Generate SQL for Dependents

  May 24, 2021 Paul Tuohy

  Way back in October 2014, in the article Find A View Of A View Of A View. . ., I detailed a stored procedure that, given the name of a table or a view, provides the full list of dependent views and all of their dependents and all of their dependents, etc. This is a stored procedure that has served me well in the world of DDL, where it is common to have views of views of views.

  In this article I will describe a follow-on stored procedure that will generate the DDL for a given table/view and all …

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