The SAP Security Blog Archives - Page 5 of 7

Introducing the SAP Cybersecurity Framework 4.0

Layer Seven on January 25, 2017

Cyber attacks are at epidemic levels. According to research performed by 360 Security, there were over 85 billion attacks in 2015, equivalent to 2000 attacks per second. The cost of data breaches continues to grow, year after year, and reached record levels in 2016. Juniper Research estimate that average costs will exceed $150M within three years.

Introduced in 2014, the SAP Cybersecurity Framework provides the most comprehensive benchmark for securing SAP systems against advanced persistent threats. It presents a roadmap for hardening, patching and monitoring SAP solutions using standard SAP-delivered tools. The newly released fourth edition of the Framework includes important updates in the areas of transport layer security, network segmentation in virtualized environments, and security settings applied through application level gateways.

The Framework no longer recommends the use of the EarlyWatch Alert (EWA) for security monitoring. This is due to concerns related to the updated rating scale used to grade security risks in the EWA. However, the Framework includes an expanded section for security monitoring using SAP Solution Manager including an overview of security-related tools bundled within Solution Manager such as Configuration Validation, System Recommendations, Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI), Service Level Reports, Interface Monitoring, and Dashboards.

The SAP Cybersecurity Framework is available in the white paper Protecting SAP Systems from Cyber Attack.

RFC Hacking: How to Hack an SAP System in 3 Minutes

Layer Seven on January 21, 2017

RFC exploits are hardly new. In fact, some of the well-known exploits demonstrated below are addressed by SAP Notes dating back several years. However, the disturbing fact is that the measures required to harden SAP systems against such exploits are not universally applied. As a result, many installations continue to be vulnerable to relatively simple exploits that could lead to devastating consequences in SAP systems. The impact of the exploits in the demonstration below include the theft of usernames and password hashes, remote logons from trusted systems, and the creation of dialog users with SAP_ALL privileges.

The first exploit demonstrates how attackers can perform operating system commands to extract sensitive information from an SAP database. This is performed through external programs such as sapxpg that are called through the RFC gateway without any authentication. The information extracted in the demo includes user credentials. However, the exploit can be used to read or modify any data from SAP databases.

The second exploit demonstrates how attackers abuse the RFC protocol to change system users to dialog users and then logon from remote systems using the privileges of RFC users.

The final exploit demonstrates the dangers of RFC callback attacks. In the example below, an RFC callback from a compromised system to a vulnerable system creates an unauthorized user in the calling system with the dangerous SAP_ALL profile. Attackers can also use this exploit to change salary information, modify programs, and many other scenarios.

Systems vulnerable to RFC exploits can be discovered using SAP Solution Manager. Solution Manager regularly scans and alerts for vulnerabilities in RFC communications such as weaknesses in access control lists for RFC gateways, RFC users with administrative profiles, RFC destinations with stored logon credentials, and missing whitelists for RFC callbacks. The Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI) of Solution Manager generates alerts for changes to RFC destinations, successful or unsuccessful attempts to call external programs through the gateway server, and RFC callbacks. Contact Layer Seven Security to discuss how to leverage Solution Manager to discover and remove RFC vulnerabilities in your SAP systems.

SAP RFC Hacking from Layer Seven Security on Vimeo.

Introducing the New Dashboard Framework for SAP Solution Manager

Layer Seven on November 29, 2016

Earlier this year, SAP announced the general availability of Focused Insights, an enhanced dashboard framework for SAP Solution Manager. The framework was previously only available to MaxAttention customers as part of MaxAttention Next Generation Add-On (MANGO) services but is now available for all SAP customers. The dashboards aggregate real-time and historical data collected by Solution Manager to analyze performance against over 800 best-practice KPIs. They are grouped into operational, tactical and strategic clusters.

Operational dashboards are used for business process monitoring and include jumps to alerts for issues related to service levels. See below.

Tactical dashboards monitor a range of system-related KPIs based on predefined performance thresholds for each metric. Views can be arranged by category or system.

You can drill down from the aggregated level to view the details for each metric. In the example below, we can monitor the patch levels and support schedules for products, components, databases, operating systems and kernels by navigating from the Maintenance section in the display for each system. Click on the image to enlarge.

Strategic dashboards are targeted at senior managers and executives to monitor service levels against expected standards. The dashboards aggregate data over extended periods to measure performance over time. In the Scorecard below, measures for areas such as service quality, business continuity, efficiency and capacity can be customized to align with specific targets.

For Security, tactical dashboards identify missing Hot News and High priority Notes for each system. They also monitor users with access to critical authorizations and transactions, as well as non-compliant security parameters, insecure RFC destinations, and clients open to direct changes.

The dashboards require the add-on ST-OST and can be enabled and configured in Solution Manager 7.1 SPS 13 or higher and the newly released Solution Manager 7.2. They do not require any coding or customization. Although the framework provides a rich set of packaged dashboards, customers can adapt SAP-delivered templates to meet specific requirements. Dashboards are rendered using HTML5 and therefore can be displayed on any platform or device, including mobile.

For more information, contact Layer Seven Security.

Securing Your Business: Security at SAP

Layer Seven on October 29, 2016

In an open letter addressed to SAP customers earlier this year, SAP CEO Bill McDermott acknowledges the “tremendous concern around information security” given the “relentless and multiplying” threat presented by increasingly sophisticated attackers. The letter introduces the SAP paper Securing Your Business that discusses security trends and outlines SAP’s response to cyber threats.

According to the paper, cyber threats are driven by the growth in the volume of enterprise data, the growing value of data, the increasing connectivity and vulnerability of endpoints, and the commercialization of attacks.

The paper also discusses weaknesses in traditional security technologies such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems that are routinely bypassed by advanced and often encrypted exploits. The paper recognizes that attackers target enterprises systems such as SAP given the extensive and valuable data stored and processed by such systems.

The paper concludes by presenting SAP’s portfolio of products for preventing, detecting and responding to security breaches. This includes Enterprise Threat Detection (ETD), Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) and Code Vulnerability Analysis. The paper also cites services and tools available in SAP Solution Manager including SOS and System Recommendations.

Other important areas for security in SAP Solution Manager include Configuration Validation (ConVal). ConVal performs daily, automated scans for hundreds of vulnerabilities in SAP systems and is therefore an important preventative tool for responding to cyber threats. Furthermore, areas such as the monitoring and alerting infrastructure of SAP Solution Manager monitor SAP logs for signs of malicious attacks and generate alerts to warn responders of potential security breaches. Finally, tools such as Usage Procedure Logging, Solution Documentation and Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA) identify application and functional areas impacted by Security Notes to increase the speed of response for SAP patches.

In contrast to many of the products outlined in the paper, SAP Solution Manager is installed in most SAP landscapes and therefore does not require any additional licensing. Contact Layer Seven Security to discuss how to implement advanced security monitoring and respond to cyber threats by optimizing your SAP Solution Manager.

Cybercrime Projected to Reach $2 Trillion by 2019

Layer Seven on October 28, 2016

According to a recent study from Juniper Research, the worldwide cost of data breaches will exceed $2 trillion by 2019. This is equivalent to 2.2% of forecast global GDP and represents a four-fold increase upon data breach costs in 2015. The average cost of data breaches will also increase to $150 million or 25 times the current average of $6 million.

Data breaches are expected to not only intensify in terms of their impact, but also grow more prolific. Globally, there were 6,000 breaches in 2015. This is expected to reach 16,000 by 2020. The increase will be due in part to the growing attack surface caused by the growth in enterprise data. According to IDC, total worldwide enterprise storage capacity will be 521,000 petabytes in 2020.

Presently, approximately 60 percent of data breaches occur in the United States. The proportion is expected to fall to 50 percent by 2020 with the growing digitization of the rest of the world.

Despite the growth in mobile communications and IoT (Internet of Things), the majority of breaches are expected to arise from the exploitation of vulnerabilities in existing IT and network infrastructure rather new and emerging technologies.

The full report is available at Juniper Research. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the current and future threat landscape including sector-by-sector trends and forecasts.

SAP CSO Recommends Solution Manager for Security Monitoring

Layer Seven on September 20, 2016

SAP Chief Security Officer, Justin Somaini, opened the first of a series of five webcasts from the America’s SAP User Group (ASUG) on the topic of SAP security. The series is intended to present SAP’s response to the growing concern over cybersecurity by discussing:

The IT threat landscape and SAP’s approach to strategic security;
Best-practices to safeguard both on-premise and cloud SAP landscapes;
Secure configuration and patch management;
Security for SAP HANA; and
SAP’s security portfolio for responding to internal and external attacks.

During the webcast, Somaini contends security is becoming an important differentiator between competitors in all markets, especially within the technology and manufacturing sector. He also acknowledges that SAP systems often store and process some of the most valuable data within organizations and are therefore particularly at risk from cyber threats. According to Somaini, “the application layer needs to be the first and last line of defence” due to inherent weaknesses in firewalls and other network technologies that cannot protect SAP applications from external threats. In his view, SAP applications should be hardened to build greater resilience against attacks.

Somaini tackles the question of single point versus integrated security solutions by recommending the use of tools that SAP customers already own in platforms such as Solution Manager over a patchwork of external tools. You can view a recording of the webcast and register for other upcoming webcasts in the series by following this link.

Detecting SAP Cyber Attacks with SAP Solution Manager

Layer Seven on September 15, 2016

Despite the $75 billion spent by organizations on security software in 2015, average times to detection for cyber attacks are an astounding 170 days (DBIR, 2016). Most attacks therefore go undetected for almost six months.

An incident response strategy can address this gap by enabling organizations to proactively discover and contain security incidents that could lead to data breaches if left unchecked. The cornerstone of effective incident response is detection. This involves collecting and analyzing information from a variety of sources to identify signs of abnormal events that could include potential malicious actions. SAP systems capture a variety of security-relevant events across multiple logs. The most significant is the Security Audit Log.

The Security Audit Log should be configured to log successful and unsuccessful logon attempts by privileged and standard users, RFC calls, changes to user records, report and transaction starts, and other critical events. This is performed through filters defined in each system. Log data is stored in local or central files that are read by the Security Monitor of the CCMS. This data is available to Solution Manager for centralized alerting.

Solution Manager should be configured to monitor not just events in the Security Audit Log, but also security-relevant events in logs for the gateway server, message server, SAProuter, Web Dispatcher, system log, UME log and, for HANA systems, syslog servers. This captures critical events such as external programs started through the gateway server, external programs registered with the gateway, HTTP requests from remote or unrecognized IPs, and successful/ unsuccessful connections through application gateways.

The Event Calculation Engine (ECE) within Solution Manager continuously monitors event data recorded in such logs to identify potential attacks based on metrics configured for each log source. This is performed using existing data providers such as Diagnostics Agents and sapstartsrv. Both are automatically installed with SAP systems. The monitoring interval for log sources can be customized but the recommended interval is 60 seconds. The ECE can be configured to perform event correlation for sophisticated pattern analysis.

Alerts are triggered by ECE for events that match a defined pattern or exceed thresholds for specific metrics. The alerts are displayed in the Alert Monitor for Solution Manager. Priority levels can be set for each alert based on a High-Medium-Low scale. Alert data also be transferred to Business Warehouse for detailed reporting and analysis using real-time dashboards.

Solution Manager also channels notifications for alerts to designated Incident Responders through email and text message. Notifications can be grouped to avoid alert flooding. Each notification provides a URL to the relevant alert or alert group within Solution Manager. Incident Responders can add comments to the alert in the Alert Monitor, follow guided procedures for handling alerts, and create and assign tickets for incident management within Solution Manager.

The example below displays the alert details and notifications generated by Solution Manager for a failed logon by the standard SAP* user in a monitored system.

1. Attempted logon using SAP* user in client 001 of system PM1.

2. Event summary in the Security Audit log.

3. Event details in the Security Audit Log.

4. Email notification of event.

5. The email attachment for the alert notification.

6. The Alert Inbox in SAP Solution Manager

7. The details of the alert in the Alert Monitor

SAP Security Notes – August 2016

Layer Seven on September 2, 2016

Note 2319506 addresses a blind SQL injection vulnerability in Database Monitors for Oracle. The vulnerability impacts all versions of SAP Basis and rates extremely high on the impact scale using the common vulnerability scoring system. Content-based and time-based blind SQL injection is used by attackers to determine when input is interpreted as a SQL statement. The results are used to fingerprint databases, build database schemas and escalate attacks.

The blind SQL injection vulnerability in the Database Monitors is caused by improper validation of user-supplied input in the function modules STUO_GET_ ORA_SYS_ TABLE and STUO_GET_ORA_SYS_TABLE_ 2. The modules are used to read Oracle system tables containing sensitive data including database instances and logical names for database connections. Corrections for the vulnerability are included in support packages for relevant SAP Basis versions detailed in Note 2311011.

Note 2313835 deals with a high risk denial of service vulnerability in the Internet Communication Manager (ICM). The ICM manages client-server communication using Web protocols such as HTTP, HTTP, and HTTPS. For NetWeaver Application Server Java, the ICM also manages communications based on the proprietary SAP P4 protocol. Note 2313835 provides kernel patches for DOS and DDOS attacks targeted at the P4 port of AS Java that could lead to service disruptions caused by resource exhaustion.

Note 2142551 delivers a framework for protecting AS ABAP against clickjacking attacks. This includes a client-dependent positive whitelist maintained in the HTTP_WHITELIST table. The key data to be maintained for each entry in the whitelist is entry_type and host. The recommended value setting for entry_type is 30 to enable clickjacking protection. Trusted hosts and domains should be defined in the host field.

Note 2012284 provides corrections to extend virus scanning to objects created by Knowledge Provider, a document and content management service within NetWeaver Application Servers.

7 Reasons You Should Upgrade to SolMan 7.2

Layer Seven on August 2, 2016

SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) is the epicenter of SAP implementations and the standard for monitoring and maintaining SAP landscapes. The general availability of release 7.2 in August is expected to deliver major advances in seven specific areas.

The first is support for managing the implementation lifecycle of HANA and S/4HANA. SolMan 7.2 is optimized to not only manage HANA systems but also run directly on HANA. Licenses for HANA are bundled with SAP maintenance contracts and are therefore effectively free for SolMan 7.2.

The second is support for hybrid systems. SolMan 7.1 SP13 or lower is directed primarily at ABAP and Java systems. However, SolMan 7.2 will extend support for monitoring both cloud and on-premise environments including SuccessFactors.

The third is an improved user experience through SAP Fiori. The Fiori launchpad provides a simple and graphical interface and replaces the work centers available in release 7.1. Dashboards have been migrated from Adobe Flash to the SAPUI5 (HTML5). Since HTML5 can be rendered on any device, SolMan no longer needs Android and iOS apps to support mobile users. The Fiori Launchpad enables users to personalize their screens to include access to other applications (see below).

The fourth is a wider array of application and cross-application dashboards for monitoring metrics such as system security, changes, events, incidents, availability and performance. Customers can also leverage custom dashboards using predefined templates available from Focused Insights. This includes dashboards for monitoring not just technical but business metrics. Focused Insights include over 800 best practices KPIs that can be deployed in minutes without programming.

The fifth is an enhanced Custom Code Management application to enable customers to optimize the quality, performance and security of custom developments. This includes governance models to identify custom code in system landscapes and tools such as UPL and SCMON to track the usage of custom code. Usage data can be used to decommission idle code to lower the attack surface for custom developments and reduce the scope of testing during system upgrades or enhancements.

The sixth is tighter integration between the Test Suite and solution documentation, enabling customers to focus testing on business processes impacted by proposed changes. This is performed using Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA). BPCA leverages the inventory of business processes in solution documentation and Technical Bills of Materials (T-BOMs) for executables within processes.

SolMan 7.2 enables users to record and replay test scripts to automate testing using Component-Based Test Automation (CBTA). These and other applications for creating and maintaining test plans, scripts, and results including defects are accessed through the Test group in the SAP Fiori Launchpad.

The seventh and final reason for upgrading to SolMan 7.2 is that SAP cannot extend the deadline for ending maintenance for release 7.1 beyond December 31, 2017. Customers have a relatively short window to upgrade to release 7.2. The Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI) is mandatory for all operations in SolMan 7.2. Therefore, MAI must be enabled in SolMan 7.1 before any upgrade. A stack split is performed during the upgrade procedure. Database migration to SAP HANA can also be performed during the upgrade. Detailed information is available in Notes 2161244, 2045230 and 2045342.

To discuss how Layer Seven Security can support your Solution Manager 7.2 implementation or upgrade projects, contact us here.

Three Reasons You Should Budget for SAP Breach Costs

Layer Seven on June 28, 2016

The average cost of a data breach has now surpassed $4 million. This is according to the latest study from the Ponemon Institute issued earlier this month. The study surveyed 383 organizations in 12 countries. It revealed that not only are data breach costs increasingly across the board, the probability that organizations will suffer a breach impacting 10,000 or more records is 25 percent.

The global results mask significant differences between countries and industries. For example, average data breach costs are highest in the U.S ($7M) and sectors such as healthcare, education and financial services. However, regardless of country or industry, the majority of breaches (48%) are caused by cyber attacks rather than human error or system glitches.

The results of the Ponemon study are contested by the report Beneath the Surface of a Cyberattack from Deloitte Advisory. According to the report, actual costs are far higher than indicated by the Ponemon study which focuses upon measuring direct and tangible costs for breach notification, forensic investigations, legal fees, public relations, regulatory fines and other areas. Deloitte estimate that such costs account for less than 5% of the total business impact of data breaches. The strategic impact of breaches in terms of increased insurance premiums, loss of intellectual property, reputational harm and other hidden costs is far higher than the direct impact. This is illustrated by a breach of patient records experienced by a healthcare company cited in the report. Only 3.5% of the $1.6 billion lost by the company as a result of the breach was associated with direct costs.

Both of the studies echo the results of an earlier report from the Ponemon Institute that placed the average cost of data breaches impacting SAP systems at $4.5M. The report also revealed that 65% of companies had experienced one or more SAP breach within the last 2 years. The significant impact of data breaches and the likelihood that organisations will experience a breach if they haven’t already done so suggests that breach costs should be planned and budgeted. However, aside from region, sector and other factors, there are three reasons that could negatively impact the extent your organization budgets for SAP breach costs. The reasons are outlined below.

1. You do not effectively identify, prioritize and apply security patches for SAP systems

The majority of exploits for SAP systems do not target zero-day vulnerabilities. Most exploits focus upon long-standing and well-known vulnerabilities that can be removed by regularly upgrading SAP systems and applying Security Notes provided by SAP. A case in point is the invoker servlet vulnerability addressed by the recent alert issued by US-CERT. This vulnerability was disclosed in 2010 and addressed by several Notes issued by SAP in the same year.

2. You do not effectively manage vulnerabilities in SAP systems

SAP systems can present a wide attack surface to attackers if they are poorly configured and monitored. A comprehensive vulnerability management program for SAP systems should include continuously monitoring and removing vulnerabilities in areas such as remote function calls, gateway servers, message servers, client-server and server-to-server communication, password policies, session management, audit settings, ICF services, UME settings, Java services and user privileges.

3. You do not effectively discover and respond to malicious events in SAP systems

SAP systems include a wide array of logs that should be continually monitored for indicators of a potential attack. This includes events such as logons or attempted logons with standard users, changes to RFC destinations, ICF services or global settings, trusted system logons, RFC callbacks, path traversals and suspected XSRF attacks. Alerts for such events should be triggered and automatically transmitted to incident response teams to ensure attacks are blocked and contained.

Customers that implement strong patch, vulnerability and threat management programs for SAP systems can justifiably budget far less for SAP breach costs that those that do not by reducing both the likelihood and impact of a potential breach. In fact, they may be able to remove the need to budget for breach costs altogether and rely upon on cyber insurance by satisfying the due diligence requirements of cyber insurance policies.

Customers that haven’t Implemented patch, vulnerability and threat management capabilities can address the gap by leveraging standard tools available in SAP Solution Manager without licencing third party software. This includes System Recommendations for patch management, Configuration Validation for vulnerability management and E2E Alerting for threat management. Layer Seven Security empower customers to unlock the capabilities of SAP Solution Manager for automated vulnerability scanning and security alerting. To learn more, contact Layer Seven Security.