Evolved Technologist ® -

Dan Woods's January 19 JargonSpy column exposes a scary truth about the mainframes that are still used today to store vast pools of data and run electricity and telecommunications grids: they are not as secure as they should be.

Woods says that IT managers tend to think of mainframes as basically safe from intrusion, so they don't focus their resources on protecting them from security breaches.

Woods highlights four "characteristics of mainframes have lulled people into a false sense of security":

One: "Mainframes have a good reputation for security, so IT departments often don't take the basic measures they do with PCs and Unix boxes";

Two: "Even though the number of MIPS may be growing, the share of the hardware and software budget consumed by mainframes is shrinking";

Three: "Transaction volume on most mainframes has grown dramatically, but that is probably not visible to IT managers or business executives"; and

Four: "Despite its mission-critical role, the mainframe has become just another server on the network."

To read more on this issue, go to the column here.