Cybersecurity attacks have been in the news all too often lately. According to the Breach Level Index, 3,764 data records are stolen or lost every minute, which adds up to over 5 million records lost per day. Of the estimated 9 billion data records lost or stolen since 2013, only 4 percent of them were encrypted, making the stolen data useless. More pervasive encryption will be one important way businesses can protect themselves.

IBM recently unveiled IBM Z, a new generation of mainframes designed to address this global epidemic of data breaches. We’re excited to hear more about this system at SHARE Providence, where Monday’s keynote session will begin with a special message from IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty.

As Ginni will describe, IBM Z pervasively encrypts data, all the time, at any scale. Data associated with any application, cloud service or database can be encrypted. Z is capable of running more than 12 billion encrypted transactions – per day, at a rate 18 times faster than other platforms on the market.

IBM Z’s focus on encryption distinguishes it from its peers, and makes it incredibly valuable in this era of cybersecurity attacks, according to Ross Mauri, General Manager, IBM Z.

"The vast majority of stolen or leaked data today is in the open and easy to use because encryption has been very difficult and expensive to do at scale," said Mauri. "We created a data protection engine for the cloud era to have a significant and immediate impact on global data security."

This is an important advancement in the mainframe world. With its speed and encryption capabilities, IBM says Z is not only the world’s most powerful transaction systems but also one of the most secure. In fact, the IBM Z is built especially to comply with stricter compliance standards, like the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation that goes into effect next year.

After the keynote, attendees can join IBM mainframe experts to learn more about the future of IBM Z. In their talk, IBM mainframe experts will explore how continuous innovation in hardware and software technology delivers differentiated value.