Welcome to the GSE UK Security Working Group

Security practitioners help their organizations to secure valuable data and assets. This working group acts in the best interests of our member organizations by growing skills and knowledge in this critical area, and taking a broader perspective of security and compliance across various domains. Sharing problems, knowledge and best practice, focus areas include:

• The latest innovations from vendors and how they help enhance security
• Threats and trends
• Regulatory updates to help prioritise security and compliance efforts
• Providing feedback to vendors to drive innovation and enhance existing products and services
• Supporting professional development and maintenance of certifications (e.g. CISA, CISM, CISSP, CRISC)

Covering all IBM mainframe operating systems, and both IBM and third party products including RACF, ACF2 and Top Secret, we aim to provide:

• A forum to exchange ideas and experience, encouraging the flow of information at meetings and through contact sessions
• A variety of technical presentations of value to our members
• A network of security professionals that members can call on
• A way for members to get the support of others for changes to IBM and vendor products

We hold three meetings each year, typically in February, June and at the GSE UK annual conference in November. Where possible, working group meetings are held at a sponsor’s venue in the UK so you can attend in person; however we now also provide the option to join working group meetings via Zoom.

Example meeting agenda

• What’s new in RACF
• What’s new in ACF2 and Top Secret
• How to hack a mainframe
• Spring-clean your RACF database
• How to improve testing for your RACF changes
• Secure engineering
• Identity Management: using the right tooling
• GDPR and the mainframe
• Digital Forensics

Click here to see the full agenda from a previous meeting.

Supporting Continuous Professional Education/Development (CPE/CPD)

If you are required to attain and report CPE/CPD hours for professional certifications and qualifications, the good news is that you can earn CPE/CPD hours with us when you attend GSE UK Region events – such as working group meetings or the annual conference. A certificate of attendance can be issued to you, if you request one when you register to attend a working group meeting. If you attend the annual conference, a certificate can be generated through MyGSE, providing you have completed feedback for sessions you have actually attended. A CPE/CPD hour is typically calculated on 60 minutes of attendance – any breaks including lunch is not included in the calculations. Presenters may be able to claim additional CPE/CPD hours for the time taken to prepare and deliver their session.

Working Group Committee Members

We are always on the lookout for presenters for upcoming meetings – we welcome presentation proposals from both users and vendors. Please send an email to the chairperson below to include your presentation title, abstract and bio.