Layer Seven Security Blog
Stay up to date on the latest trends in SAP security, new threats and information on protecting your critical systems against an attack
Measuring the Risks of Cyber Attack
Most studies that examine the impact of cyber attack tend to focus on a combination of direct and indirect costs. Directs costs include forensic investigations, financial penalties, legal fees, hardware and software upgrades, etc. The approach is typified by the annual Cost of Data Breach Study performed by the Ponemon Institute, now in its eighth …
Three Parallels between the POS Breach at Target Corp. and Vulnerabilities in ERP systems
The decision of the Office of the Comptroller at the U.S Department of Treasury to recognize cyber threats as one of the gravest risks faced by organisations today appears to be vindicated by the disclosure of an unprecedented data breach at Target Corporation shortly after the release of the Comptroller’s report. Specifics of the breach …
Monitoring Access to Sensitive Data using SAP RAL
The disclosure of up to 200,000 classified documents belonging to the NSA by Edward Snowden in 2013, together with the release of over 750,000 U.S Army cables, reports and other sensitive information by Bradley Manning in 2010, has drawn attention to the need to control and monitor access to confidential data in corporate systems. For …
New malware variant suggests cybercriminals are targeting SAP systems
Security researchers at last week’s RSA Europe Conference in Amsterdam revealed the discovery of a new variant of a widespread Trojan program that has been modified to search for SAP systems. This form of reconnaissance is regarded by security experts as the preliminary phase of a planned attack against SAP systems orchestrated by cybercriminals. The …
SAP HANA: The Challenges of In-Memory Computing
This article is an extract from the forthcoming white paper entitled Security in SAP HANA by Layer Seven Security. The paper is scheduled for release in November 2013. Please follow this link to download the publication. According to research performed by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the volume of digital information in the world is …
Layered Defenses in Oracle 12c: The New Benchmark for Database Security
Oracle databases support more than two thirds of SAP deployments in mid to large size enterprises. Oracle’s domination of the SAP database market is due to a widely regarded performance edge in areas such as compression, availability and scalability. Oracle databases are also optimized for SAP technology as a result of a long-standing partnership between …
Organisations are not effectively addressing IT security and compliance risks according to accounting professionals
The results of the 2013 Top Technology Initiatives Survey revealed that securing IT environments against cyber attack and managing IT risks and compliance are rated as two of the three greatest challenges in technology by accounting professionals in North America. The survey was performed jointly by the AICPA and CPA, the largest accounting organisations in …
Introducing the ABAP Test Cockpit: A New Level of ABAP Quality Assurance
The ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) is SAP’s new framework for Quality Assurance. It performs static and unit tests for custom ABAP programs and introduces Quality-Gates (Q-Gates) for transport requests. ATC was unveiled at last year’s SAP TechEd. The entire session including a live demo can be viewed below. Following a successful pilot, it was released …
A Dangerous Flaw in the SAP User Information System (SUIM)
Customers that have yet to implement Security Note 1844202 released by SAP on June 10 should do so immediately. The Note deals with a vulnerability that could be exploited to bypass monitoring controls designed to detect users with privileged access, including the SAP_ALL profile. This profile can be used to provide users with almost all …
Lloyds 2013 Risk Index: Cyber Risk Rated as the Third Most Significant Risk by Board Executives
The recent wave of sophisticated and targeted data breaches has led global business leaders to recognize cyber risk as one of the most significant threats faced by corporations today. According to the Lloyds 2013 Risk Index released this week, “Cyber security now sits squarely towards the top of the agenda for boards around the world”. …
Exploring the SAP DIAG Protocol
One of the most memorable events at last year’s BruCON in Belgium was Martin Gallo’s expose of the SAP DIAG protocol. The session can be viewed in its entirety below. DIAG (Dynamic Information and Action Gateway) is a proprietary protocol supporting client-server communication and links the presentation (SAP GUI) and application (NetWeaver) layer in SAP …
Securing Your SAP Systems: How to Counter Every Current and Emerging Threat
One of the highlights of the Sapphire conference earlier this month was the insightful session on SAP security delivered by Gordon Muehl, Senior Vice President of Product Security at SAP. A recording of the session can be viewed below. The session highlighted the threat presented to Internet-enabled SAP systems by external agents and stressed the …
Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) 2013: ‘This isn’t a threat you can afford to ignore’
The breadth and depth of the 2013 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) is unprecedented. Released this Monday, the reports brings together the investigations performed by nineteen law enforcement agencies, research institutions and private security firms that combat data breaches including the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), U.S Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. …
Countering the Threat of Corporate Espionage
According to the results of a survey released by HBGary during the recent 2013 RSA Conference in San Francisco, more than 70 percent of American investors are interested in reviewing the cybersecurity practices of public companies and nearly 80 percent would not invest in companies with a history of cyberattacks. The survey of 405 U.S. …
International Corporate Espionage: Annual Cost of Intellectual Property Theft Estimated at $250 Billion for U.S Economy
According to NSA Director General Keith Alexander, cyber-espionage has led to “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.†This is supported by not only a recent report by Symantec, which places the cost of intellectual property theft in the United States at $250 billion a year, but a prominent report on cyber-espionage released by Mandiant …
Lessons from the Top Ten Data Breaches of 2012: Defense-in-Depth for SAP Systems
According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), there were 680 reported data breaches in 2012 covering all forms of commercial, governmental, educational, medical and non-profit organizations. The breaches are estimated to have compromised over 27M data records. The most significant breach occurred at VeriSign. Although the extent of the breach has never been disclosed …
The Final Frontier: The Challenges in Developing Secure Custom ABAP Programs
In November, SAP released an unusually high number of Security Notes to patch various forms of injection vulnerabilities in it’s software. The trend continued in December with the release of several patches for code injection flaws in the Computer Center Management System (BC-CCM), Project System (PS-IS), Transport Organizer (BC-CTS-ORG) and work processes in Application Servers …
SAP Audit Guides for Inventory and Human Resources
Layer Seven Security has released the highly anticipated SAP Audit Guides for Inventory and Human Resources. Download your free copy at http://layersevensecurity.com/SAP_audit_guides.html
SAP Security Notes, September 2012
Missing Authorization Checks, Signature Wrapping Attacks and Code Injection Vulnerabilities. Read September’s Guide to SAP Security Patches at http://layersevensecurity.com/SAP_security_advisories.html
Security Researchers Expose a Dangerous Authentication Bypass in Oracle Databases
More than two-thirds of mid to large SAP customers in every industry run their SAP applications with Oracle databases. Oracle’s success is driven by compatibility and performance. Oracle 11.2 is certified for use with Unix, Linux and Windows-based SAP environments and provides features such as self-tuning, sophisticated partitioning and advanced data compression that give Oracle …
SAP Security Notes, August 2012
Missing authorization checks, hardcoded usernames and passwords, and vulnerabilities in credit card data stored in SAP Logistics. Download our latest guide to SAP Security Notes at http://layersevensecurity.com/SAP_security_advisories.html
Cybersecurity Disclosures: A Three Step Strategy for Compliance with the New SEC Guidance
Against a background of growing investor concern and pressure from legislators, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is leading the drive for more open and timely disclosure of cybersecurity risks and incidents from public companies. Earlier this year, it challenged Amazon’s decision not to disclose the financial impact of the theft of customer data held …
Download the Ultimate Guide to Auditing and Securing Procure-to-Pay Controls in SAP
The third installment of Layer Seven Security’s SAP Audit Guide was released today and can be downloaded at http://layersevensecurity.com/SAP_audit_guides.html. The series has proven to be a popular resource for audit and security professionals with over 10,000 downloads to date. The latest Guide focuses upon expenditure-related controls in areas such as vendor master data, purchasing, invoice processing and …
SAP Security Notes, July 2012
Missing authorization checks in the Archiving Workbench, default pass phrases on the J2EE secure store and SQL injection vulnerabilities in Java applications. Read the guide to July’s SAP Security Notes at http://layersevensecurity.com/SAP_security_advisories.html