New IBM Mainframe Encrypts All the Things

Next-generation Z series features the elusive goal of full data encryption.

1 Min Read
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In the first major mainframe announcement by IBM in a decade, the company today unveiled its next-generation Z series that supports full-blown encryption for data via applications, cloud, and databases rather than today's more common practice of pockets of crypto.

Encryption remains a high bar for many organizations to deploy en masse; it's more often deployed at specific layers or portions of the data flow. And yes, mainframes are still a thing: The majority of credit card transactions run on IBM mainframes today, and other financial, insurance, and travel transactions still rely on the big ol' iron. IBM enlisted experts and customers from 150 different companies in building the architecture of the new Z system, including ADP and Highmark Healthcare.

"The challenge everyone has is it was too expensive to encrypt all of this … not really [expensive] in money, but I mean in processing time," says Caleb Barlow, vice president of threat intelligence at IBM Security. Transaction-based systems can't afford degradation of performance or user experience, he says. "When you're moving money or visiting an ecommerce website ... the encryption and decryption" steps can slow the process, he says.

So in most cases, encryption happens between the Web browser and the application server, or in a storage array. After each step of the data flow, the data is decrypted, so it doesn't remain locked down.

The Z system keeps data encrypted across the board, from the network to the storage array, in what IBM calls "pervasive" encryption, explains Barlow.

IBM engineered encryption into the Z's postage-stamp sized silicon processor: there are 6 billion transistors there dedicated to encryption processing, he says. 

Read the rest of this article on Dark Reading.

About the Author

Kelly Jackson Higgins

Executive Editor at Dark Reading

Kelly Jackson Higgins is Executive Editorat DarkReading.com. She is an award-winning veteran technology and business journalist with more than two decades of experience in reporting and editing for various publications, including Network Computing, Secure Enterprise Magazine, CommunicationsWeek, Virginia Business magazine, and other major media properties. Jackson Higgins was recently selected as one of the Top 10 Cybersecurity Journalists in the US. She began her career as a sports writer in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and earned her BA at The College of William & Mary. Follow her on Twitter @kjhiggins.

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