Voltage targets IBM z/OS with SecureData update

Voltage Security has updated its SecureData platform to include encryption and security protections for IBM System Z mainframes.

The company said its update would extend protections to the z/OS platform, allowing administrators to secure data stored within mainframe systems.

Voltage Security vice president of product management Mark Bower told V3 the update was part of a larger strategy by the company to extend SecureData from on-premise servers and mainframes into cloud platforms.

"If you have data that is moving from the datacentre to clouds then traditional solutions have limited capabilities for protecting data," Bower said.

"It comes down to the fact that you need to protect data at the data level."

The Voltage SecureData z/Protect plug-in will integrate with both the z/OS platform and the mainframe hardware itself to add encryption and security protections. Additionally, the security platform will integrate with IBM's Customer Information Control System (CICS) software.

The release comes as enterprises are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs for targeted attacks. Bower said that the update will help companies protect themselves against such attacks by adding an extra layer of protection for stored data.

"I think these days people have come to the realisation that an end-to-end model is really one of the best defences against these new forms of risk," Bower said.

"At the end of the day if you can reduce the exposure of sensitive data to the minimum number of systems and render it useless to hackers, then you have gone a long way to minimising that threat."