The previous TechTip focused on COUNT, MIN, MAX, SUM and AVG—all very useful column functions. However, the last two functions can produce results that are not very user-friendly. This TechTip will help you solve that.

By Rafael Victória-Pereira

Say you have a beautifully crafted SQL statement that returns the average of some complicated operation between columns of a given subset of data. It saved you hours of writing intermediate queries and complicated joins (by the way, here are a couple of refreshers about table joins, if you need them), but the result is most unfortunate: a very long number with loads and loads of decimal places. So what do you do? Rewrite the query to get a “prettier” result? No, there’s a better way: use CAST.

You must assign a data type to each column in a table. 

By Brian Meyers and Jim Buck

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from chapter 3 of Programming in ILE RPG, Fifth Edition.

The column’s data type determines how its values are stored, how much storage the column occupies, and what kinds of operations can be performed on the column when it is used within a program. Commonly used data types fall into three general categories:

• Character
• Numeric
• Date

Or do you need to implement Exit Point software?

By DXR Security, LLC.

Many organizations have implemented exit point software but are wondering whether the rules they’ve implemented are working as they expect. Other organizations have purchased exit point software but have only implemented it in ‘watch mode’ and wonder about the benefits of implementing rules. Finally, some organizations are contemplating a software purchase but aren’t sure it’s worth the time and effort and need proof of the benefits prior to purchasing. Regardless of which situation you find yourself in, Penetration Testing for IBM i can help answer your question. 

IBM Security today released its annual X-Force Threat Intelligence Index finding that although ransomware's share of incidents declined only slightly (4 percentage points) from 2021 to 2022, defenders were more successful detecting and preventing ransomware. Despite this, attackers continued to innovate with the report showing the average time to complete a ransomware attack dropped from 2 months down to less than 4 days.

By IBM Corporation

According to the 2023 report, the deployment of backdoors, which allow remote access to systems, emerged as the top action by attackers last year. About 67% of those backdoor cases related to ransomware attempts, where defenders were able to detect the backdoor before ransomware was deployed. The uptick in backdoor deployments can be partially attributed to their high market value. X-Force observed threat actors selling existing backdoor access for as much as $10,000, compared to stolen credit card data, which can sell for less than $10 today.