If I had to guess I'd say that it is the CICS region that is permitted to 
submit jobs with USER=<region> in the absence of any evident surrogate 
profiles.  

However one still needs to have a chain of logging events where one can tell 
which job was submitted from which CICS transaction running under which user 
context to maintain the whole non-repudiation thing.  That's the piece I'd be a 
little more concerned with establishing and I think it'd be a little harder to 
manage this in an unalterable form even if I had it given that I would need to 
tie a few different things together to do it. 

Thomas Ambros
zEnterprise Operating Systems

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of 
Lennie Dymoke-Bradshaw
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2019 08:06
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Submitting batch if you don't have TSO

Bob,

I think ITschak's words are good advice.

However, I am concerned at your statement,

"The problem, of course, is that if I'm authorized to submit jobs with 
USER=<region> on the JOB card then I can submit ~any~ such job, to do anything 
I want that the region can do."

The CICS transaction runs under the security context of the region userid.

Are the CICS users explicitly authorised to do job submission? 
Are security checks made against the requester of the CICS transaction?
Is the CICS user involved at all?

Lennie Dymoke-Bradshaw | Security Lead | RSM Partners Ltd
Web:              www.rsmpartners.com
‘Dance like no one is watching. Encrypt like everyone is.’

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of 
ITschak Mugzach
Sent: 04 September 2019 19:33
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Submitting batch if you don't have TSO

Bob,

few comments:

   1. You don't need to specify user= in the job card. any job submitted
   under CICS without propagation control, will be assigned the CICS userid.
   2. can cics end users manipulate the jcl they are submitting or it is
   just submitted by the transaction? I hope they can't!
   3. You can control this facility with the PROPCNTL resource class class
   (all esms).
   4. If STIG framework is of relevant to you organization, submitting jobs
   under the CICS user-id is a medium level risk.
   5. management forgot to mention "currently". what happens when a CICS
   user will be assigned a TSO segment?
   6. FTP is a potential security risk, however, the end-user must have an
   OMVS segment. go guess who has one and why.
   7. You don't leave open doors. Someone may use it to enter in. (see the
   swiss cheese model).

ITschak

On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 9:06 PM Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Not sure where to ask this, but I've wondered about it off and on for 
> a while and it's past time I asked.  I'm responsible for security at a 
> mainframe shop where they use a lot of CICS.  There are CICS 
> transactions that fire off batch jobs; the way this place handles it 
> is to submit the job under the authority of the CICS region ID 
> (USER=<region> on the JOB card), and give each user of such a transaction the 
> necessary authority.
>
> This gives me the screaming heeby-jeebies, but when I complain about 
> it I get little support back.  The problem, of course, is that if I'm 
> authorized to submit jobs with USER=<region> on the JOB card then I 
> can submit ~any~ such job, to do anything I want that the region can 
> do.  (And of course any installation that's careless about letting 
> folks have that authority is even more careless about what their CICS 
> regions can do.)
>
> One argument management offers in mitigation is that most of these 
> CICS users don't have TSO, so they haven't the ability to submit batch jobs.
> Off-hand I can't contradict them, but I'm skeptical.  I'm thinking 
> there's probably a way and I just don't know about it.  Can anyone 
> confirm?  If I were a CICS user without the ability to log on to TSO, 
> could I still submit a batch job somehow?
>
> ---
> Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
>
> /* You know you've had too much coffee when....
>         Juan Valdez names his donkey after you.
>         You've worn out the handle on your favorite coffee mug.
>         Your eyes stay open when you sneeze. */
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send 
> email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>


--
ITschak Mugzach
*|** IronSphere Platform* *|* *Information Security Contiguous Monitoring for 
Legacy **|  *

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