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Status Under review
Workspace z/OS
Categories General
Created by Guest
Created on Mar 4, 2024

RELATED IDEAS

Usage of the "Common Plattform Enumeration" (CPE) for IBM Products in the "IBM Z an LinuxOne Security Portal" within Resource link

Given that vulnerability and patch management is not only a concern of the z ecosystem in an organization, the software to manage vulnerability data should be able to handle sources and vulnerabilities for multiple platforms. Therefore a standardized naming convention to identify the affected products/technologies should be used. With the "Common Platform Enumeration" (CPE) there already exists a standard naming scheme which is used for identifying a product in the affected version for vulnerability management.

Currently when working with the “IBM Z and LinuxONE Security Portal” within Resource link for the z/OS environment a product name is provided for a vulnerability, as long as the mapping with the FMID is not made. For zVM a Compid with a RLS Nr. is used.

IDEAS request:

Provide a commonly used standard for identifying a vulnerable product in the security portal through the usage of the naming scheme CPE

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     May 6, 2024

    Vulnerability management is done by an organisational unit that is working with CPE across technical plattforms using vulnerability scanner and different security tools. These working units neither have mainframe expertise (FMID, HOLDDATA…), nor do they patch systems.

    They

    • collect information about existing threats to the organisation,

    • identify if the organisation is affected by this vulnerability (first line) f.e. by matching the CPE with software inventories (i.e. FLEXERA),

    • inform mainframe product specialists about product related vulnerabilities

    • track patching and remind product specialists of timely dealing with the vulnerability.

    • report to CISO.

    This way the product specialists will be actively informed (CVSS, APAR, PTF) and they need to decide on an environmental score and if and when a ptf will be installed.

    SMP/E installation can also be centralized within an organisation and not every mainframe product specialist necessarily installs software by himself and knows about HOLDDATA and FMIDs. Product specialists generally know about the product names and version numbers which IBM uses for sales, but not necessarily about technical installation details. Unfortunately product names used for IBM sales contracts differ from the product names used within the IBM security portal, therefor a unique product ID is needed.

    In general the way IBM treats vulnerability information and related product IDs is confusing, probably historically grown. In contrast an organisation needs to know ALL existing vulnerabilities within their IT-Systems. Therefor it is essential to have an organisational unit working within a standardized process across all IT platforms as well as automation wherever possible.

    The IBM security portal unfortunately does not support these needs sufficiently. Different product categories have different product IDs (FMID for z/OS products, CompID for z/VM + RLS) and also different ways to find out about existing vulnerabilities (primary ressources => machine readable files and only vulnerabilities with existing ptf; security notices => only human readable, vulnerability information without ptf).

    The usage of a CPE could be a first step to support automation and integrate mainframe vulnerability management into a standardized central vulnerability management within an organisation. Looking into the CPE standard it makes me hope that the CPE can be derived from the information that is already existing within the portal. Hopefully it can simply be added into the download files without major costly changes for IBM.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     May 2, 2024
    IBM is attempting to better understand the Use Case for the suggested solution and trying to figure out what the root problem that an expensive and comprehensive effort like converting CPE would solve.
    In the IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE Security Portal, we have SMP/E HOLDDATA which can help identify applicability for what products you are running and what Security/Integrity fixes are necessary with well-known and used reporting capabilities. In addition, other information in this Portal can help you to understand the vulnerability CVSS scoring, and z/OS products affected.
    We would like to specifically understand what is the difficulty in using what is provided today with z/OS, vs. what a change to use CPE might provide which is necessary for your business and is not available today.
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Mar 4, 2024

    Very important and highly appreciated!

    Mainframe customers are required to deliver zSystem vulnerabilities into standard vulnerability management systems of their company in order to track patching processes and make sure vulnerabilites are mitigated in line with security policy requirements. Without a correct and automatically processable matching of

    1. vulnerability to product/version (IBM responsibility)

    2. product/version to customers organizational unit for patching (customers responsibility)

    dealing with something like log4j is a true nightmare.

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