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
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
SOAP Opera: Securing SAP Web Services
The best run businesses may run SAP but very few run it exclusively. Most SAP systems operate in a complex, heterogeneous environment with information and processes spread across multiple systems including legacy applications. For SAP, this has always been a barrier to the rapid deployment of its software. Traditional solutions such IDocs, BAPIs and other …
FTC Takes Action against Wyndham Worldwide after Data Breach
Until recently, the fallout from the data breach at Wyndham Worldwide, owner of Ramada, Travelodge and a host of other hotel brands, followed an all too familiar path. Immediately after news of the breach reached customers in 2010, the company followed regular protocols by issuing an apology and committing itself to improving security procedures in …
White Hats, Black Hats and Skiddies: The Class System in Information Security
There are few terms more widely misunderstood in the world of information security than the word ‘hacking’. Although it’s used in a variety of contexts, it’s most commonly used to refer to all types of cyber crime including everything from fraud and industrial espionage to identity theft and spamming. If you take this view, cyber …
The Top 5 Security Notes you should apply to Patch your SAP systems
April was another bumper month for SAP Security Notes. In all, SAP issued 33 patches, of which 5 were considered critical. Top of the list were Notes 1647225 and 1675432 which address missing authorization checks in components of Business Objects Data Services (EIM-DS) and the SAP Classification System (CA-CL). EIM-DS is SAP’s flagship solution for …
The Four Myths of ERP Security
There are several myths in ERP security. One of the most common is that security is largely a matter of controlling access and segregation of duties. Another is that business applications are accessible only within internal networks. Yet another is that such applications are not a target for attack. All three are based on a …
A Ten Step Guide to Implementing SAP’s New Security Recommendations
On January 16, SAP issued a revamped version of the whitepaper Secure Configuration of SAP Netweaver Application Server using ABAP, which is rapidly becoming the de-facto standard for securing the technical components of SAP. According to SAP, the guidance provided in the whitepaper is intended to help customers protect ABAP systems against unauthorized access within …
SAP had reservations with Deloitte’s blueprint for Marin County
After recently losing Beneficial Mutual as an audit client, Deloitte suffered another major setback last week. While a U.S District Court Judge dismissed racketeering and other claims against the firm made by Marin County as a result of what the Californian authority considered a botched implementation of SAP for Public Sector, the court declared that …
When do default passwords become a configuration error?
The answer is when your Legal department is managing the fallout after a data breach. The case in point is the Utah Department of Health which announced this week that over 280,000 records belonging to Medicaid and CHIP recipients were compromised after a breach last week believed to be perpetrated by a group in Eastern …