It may take a bit of investigation to determine exactly what authorities programmers require, but they rarely need all-encompassing special authorities.

Editor's Note: This article is an extract of the white paper "What Authorities Do Programmers Really Need?" available free from the  MC White Paper Center.

Laws and regulations require that users be given only enough authority to do the tasks associated with their jobs. In addition, auditors require IT departments to reduce the number of "powerful" users on the system. As a result, the programming staff comes under scrutiny. Why? Because they have often been given lots of power in the past. In i5/OS terms, that means programmers have been given the *ALLOBJ special authority. The question I am often asked is, "What authorities do programmers need to do their jobs?" Unfortunately, the answer is, "That depends." This article looks at how you can determine the answer to this question for your environment and also explains what authorities programmers do not need.

What Programmers Don't Need: *ALLOBJ Special Authority

It may take a bit of investigation to determine exactly what authorities programmers require, but they rarely need the *ALLOBJ special authority. However, many programmers will insist that it's a requirement to perform their job functions on both development and production systems. I can say with certainly that, unless the programmers double as security officers, they do not need *ALLOBJ special authority assigned to their profiles on a permanent basis.

Giving *ALLOBJ authority to programmers is a bad idea because it provides them with the authority to access every object on the system. Because the actions of an *ALLOBJ user cannot be controlled, you cannot maintain proper change management controls if programmers have been given *ALLOBJ special authority. Even if you have implemented change management software, programmers with *ALLOBJ authority can directly access and modify production-level source. Programmers with *ALLOBJ authority can easily cover up their actions by deleting objects such as joblogs and journal receivers and by clearing the history log. Finally, programmers with *ALLOBJ special authority on production systems can access, modify, or delete production database programs and files; view or download private data; or run encryption routines to decrypt data. All of these actions bring the integrity and availability of your data into question, which is why programmers' authorities are under scrutiny and regulatory compliance requirements are being implemented.

What Programmers Do Require

Now that we know what programmers don't need, we must determine what authorities programmers do require. To begin, look at the tasks programmers perform. If their sole responsibility is architecting, coding, and testing applications (which tends to be the case in larger organizations), the requirements are fairly straightforward. The development environment and change management software you're using will dictate the actual implementation.

Want to learn more? Download the complete white paper "What Authorities Do Programmers Really Need?" from the MC White Paper Center.

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Carol Woodbury is IBM i Security SME and Senior Advisor to Kisco Systems, a firm focused on providing IBM i security solutions. Carol has over 30 years’ experience with IBM i security, starting her career as Security Team Leader and Chief Engineering Manager for iSeries Security at IBM in Rochester, MN. Since leaving IBM, she has co-founded two companies: SkyView Partners and DXR Security. Her practical experience and her intimate knowledge of the system combine for a unique viewpoint and experience level that cannot be matched.

Carol is known worldwide as an author and award-winning speaker on security technology, specializing in IBM i security topics. She has written seven books on IBM i security, including her two current books, IBM i Security Administration and Compliance, 3^rd Edition and Mastering IBM i Security, A Modern, Step-by-Step Approach. Carol has been named an IBM Champion since 2018 and holds her CISSP and CRISC security certifications.

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MC Press books written by Carol Woodbury available now on the MC Press Bookstore.

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