Recently, a hacker attack on a financial institution in Brazil resulted in the theft of more than BRL 1 billion, once again highlighting a crucial warning: no organization is immune to cyberattacks — not even those that invest heavily in traditional security layers.
Incidents like this expose not only operational vulnerabilities but also the importance of having resilient, secure, and continuously updated infrastructures to safeguard critical information. This is where the Mainframe comes in — a technology often perceived as legacy, but which has, in fact, evolved impressively to address the risks of today’s digital landscape.
Why Mainframe matters for data security:
The Mainframe — especially its most advanced generation, the IBM Z — is designed from the ground up to handle large volumes of transactions securely, reliably, and with full auditability. Some of its key security strengths include:
Pervasive Encryption: IBM Z leads the market in native encryption of data at rest, in use, and in transit, with minimal impact on performance. This means that data can be encrypted throughout its entire lifecycle — which would drastically reduce exposure in a data breach like the one that recently occurred.
Isolation of Sensitive Workloads: Mainframe architecture allows applications, data, and virtual environments to be isolated in logical partitions (LPARs), making lateral movement by intruders within the system much harder.
Trust and Immutability: With features like Data Privacy Passports and Hyper Protect Services, IBM Z provides granular control over who can access each piece of information, no matter where it resides.
GFS Software: enhancing IBM Z security with specialized solutions:
As an IBM partner, GFS Software goes beyond delivering software — we develop and implement solutions that make the Mainframe ecosystem even more secure and efficient.
GFS ZCL (z/OS Cloud Connector):
In a world where data must flow across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, ZCL enables secure data transfers between the Mainframe and the cloud with end-to-end encryption. This ensures that even when information leaves the IBM Z environment, it remains protected from interception or unauthorized access.
GFS TQS (Tape Quality System):
Although tape backups are still widely used for their reliability, they can become a point of vulnerability without quality control. TQS continuously analyzes tape integrity and readability, preventing data loss and ensuring recoverability when it’s needed most.
How the latest IBM Z generation strengthens this security landscape: