Question:
When I start to encrypt the password used for an XCOM transfer is there anything to do on the receiving side?
Answer:
With XCOM's program XCOMENCR you can encrypt a password before a transfer:
- On the Mainframe you use PGM=XCOMENCR to encrypt the password
- On Windows you use %XCOM_HOME%\xcomencr.exe
- On Unix you use %XCOM_HOME/bin/xcomencr.
On the receiving side there is nothing to do:
- XCOM receives the password which was sent over.
- In case it was encrypted, XCOM decrypts it before checking it for relevance.
- That process is transparent for the user, who has nothing to do.
Additional Information:
Even if not using XCOMENCR the password is enciphered before it is sent to the transfer partner and XCOM never sends passwords in a readable form.
XCOMENCR uses an in-house 76-bit proprietary method to encrypt XCOM parameters with a variable and a fixed key.