RE: z/OS, OS/390 Pen testing tips/ideas/papers?

From: Davi Ottenheimer (dottenheimerat_private)
Date: Thu Jan 30 2003 - 11:32:51 PST

  • Next message: Torbjorn.Wictorinat_private: "Re: z/OS, OS/390 Pen testing tips/ideas/papers?"

    > On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 05:24:22AM -0800, Nick Jacobsen wrote:
    > > Hi all,
    > >     One of my clients has an IBM OS/390 running on one of their 
    > > networks I am doing some security testing on, and 
    > considering I really 
    > > have not dealt with any IBM mainframes before when it comes to 
    > > security, I was hoping that some of you might be able to 
    > point me the 
    > > right direction.  Anything would be helpful, but especially from a 
    > > penetration viewpoint.
    
    Nick,
    
    OS/390 and z/OS have significantly more similarity to the exposures of open
    systems than their predecessors (it's not just a "mainframe" anymore). For
    example, you will probably find some combination of hardware encryption,
    digital certificates, PKI, Kerberos, LDAP, SSL, or even regular UNIX System
    Services (USS -- Unix under MVS, formerly called OMVS). The latter is always
    a good place to start. I've worked with both RedHat and SUSE systems running
    Apache on z/OS USS that, as expected, had many of the typical *NIX vulns
    (but only to their own instance). Security gaps will also be related to the
    implementation of MQ Series, DB2, and Websphere (i.e. check out the redbook
    on websphere security --
    http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/pdfs/sg246846.pdf).
    
    I suggest reading the z/OS security guidelines and docs and working backward
    from there. In other words, there are plenty of docs explaining how things
    *should* be done that will provide a scope for where to investigate. You
    might find this paper a good starting point:
    http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/403/guski.html
    http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/403/guski.pdf
    
    The Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) and use of the RACF Remote
    Sharing Facility (RRSF) also will tell you a lot about the system,
    especially if you can manage to access the system or, even better, find past
    audit reports... ;)
    
    Also, there are some tools available but I don't know much about them.
    http://www.goldisconsulting.com has an RACF password cracker. 
    http://www.janusassociates.com has a penetration tool called
    "I.C.U...OS/390" and a cheesy but informative presentation about OS/390
    security (http://www.janusassociates.com/icu/pres.html).
    
    You also might want to ping some OS/390 security guys like Stuart Henderson
    (http://www.stuhenderson.com/XSERVAUT.HTM) Thierry Falissard
    (http://os390-mvs.hypermart.net/) or Nigel Pentland
    (http://www.nigelpentland.co.uk). They have some basic info online and could
    probably point you in the right direction.
    
    Hope that helps. Good luck,
    
    Davi
    
    +++ ------------------------------------------------------------- +++
    Davi Ottenheimer, CISSP                      Synchron Networks, Inc.
    Chief Security Engineer                      100 Enterprise Way, C230
    www.synchronnetworks.com 			   Scotts Valley, CA 95066
    							     
    
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