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Q&A: Cybersecurity Monitoring with SAP Solution Manager

Layer Seven on July 30, 2017

How does Solution Manager detect threats and vulnerabilities in SAP systems? What specific applications in SolMan are used for vulnerability, patch and threat management? What are the requirements for using these areas? How long does it take to configure? What are the differences between monitoring using SolMan 7.1 and 7.2? What are the benefits of using SolMan versus third party tools? Why should you partner with Layer Seven Security to help you leverage the cybersecurity capabilities of SAP Solution Manager?

Discover the answers to these and many other questions in the new Q&A section and learn how you can immediately protect your SAP systems from advanced threats using tools you already own and an approach recommended by SAP.

Remember to bookmark the page since we will be updating the questions and answers periodically. Also, feel free to submit your questions for our experts in the comments below.

Q: What is SAP Solution Manager?
A: Solution Manager is the most widely deployed SAP product after ECC. It’s installed in almost all SAP landscapes and is used for application lifecycle activities such as system patching and upgrades, change management, incident management, and system monitoring.

Q: How is Solution Manager licensed?
A: Usage rights for Solution Manager are bundled with SAP support and maintenance agreements. SAP Enterprise Support customers can manage their whole IT infrastructure with Solution Manager. Customers with Standard Support can manage SAP products within their IT landscapes with Solution Manager. Licensing for SAP HANA is included with the usage rights for SAP Solution Manager 7.2.

Q: What security tools are available in Solution Manager?
A: There are several applications in Solution Manger that should be used for advanced security monitoring. We recommend Service Level Reporting, Security Dashboards, System Recommendations, Interface Monitoring and Security Alerting.

Q: Why doesn’t Layer Seven Security recommend the EWA and SOS reports?
E: There are drawbacks with both reports. The EarlyWatch Alert (EWA) performs some security checks but is not specifically a security report. Therefore, the range and volume of checks performed by EWA for security is low. The Security Optimization Service (SOS) provides better coverage but is not fully automated. You must submit a service request to run SOS for ABAP systems. Service requests to run SOS for Java systems must be submitted to SAP.

Q: What are Service Level Reports?
A: Service Level Reports (SLR) automate vulnerability reporting for SAP systems. They perform scheduled checks for hundreds of security weaknesses for ABAP, HANA and Java systems and automatically distribute the results via email, SFTP or the Enterprise Portal. SLRs include detailed descriptions for findings, risk ratings, links to relevant SAP Notes and guidance at the SAP Help Portal and compliance scorecards for frameworks such as NIST, PCI DSS and IT-SOX.

Q: How do SLRs work?
A: SLRs read the results of automated daily vulnerability scans performed by Solution Manager for SAP systems. The results are checked against security KPIs during runtime. SLRs are typically scheduled to run on a weekly or monthly schedule.

Q: Are SLRs available in multiple languages?
A: Yes, SLRs can be run in any language including French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Mandarin.

Q: Are SLRs customizable?
A: Yes, you can customize every aspect of service level reports including the design, layout, security checks, and KPI metrics and thresholds.

Q: Can you provide a sample Service Level Report?
A: Yes, submit your request here.

Q: What is System Recommendations?
A: System Recommendations is an application in Solution Manger that performs automated patch management for SAP systems. It connects directly to SAP Support to download required security notes and monitor the status of notes implemented in systems through regular background jobs.

Q: Does System Recommendations also download and apply corrections?
A: Yes, System Recommendations downloads corrections from SAP Support to target systems. The user is automatically directed to SNOTE in the target systems once the corrections are downloaded.

Q: Does System Recommendations identify the impact of security patches?
A: Yes, System Recommendations integrates with applications in Solution Manager to perform change impact analysis and discover programs, function modules, transactions, reports and business processes effected by notes.

Q: Does System Recommendations integrate with Change Request Management (ChaRM)?
A: Yes, System Recommendations includes the option to automatically generate a change request for required notes.

Q: What are Security Dashboards?
A: Security Dashboards monitor critical key performance indicators to track vulnerabilities and threats across SAP landscapes in real-time.

Q: What type of metrics are monitored by Security Dashboards?
A: The Dashboards connect to data stores in Solution Manager for event-driven alerts and system and user level vulnerabilities. Users can drilldown from aggregated results to detailed values.

Q: What type of data visualizations are available in the Security Dashboards?
Users can select from column, line, pie, scatter and other charts and Fiori tiles and tables.

Q: What is Interface Monitoring?
A: Interface Monitoring is used to map and track system interfaces in SAP landscapes including RFC, HTTP, IDoc and Web Service connections. It automatically creates a topology of system interfaces and monitors the usage of the interfaces in real-time. Alerts can be generated for channel metrics including availability, configuration and performance.

Q: What is Security Alerting?
A: Security Alerting is based on the Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI) of Solution Manager. MAI connects to data providers including event logs to monitor for security vulnerabilities and incidents. MAI generates automatic notifications for security incidents including emails and text messages.

Q: What type of security vulnerabilities and events are monitored by MAI?
A: MAI monitors system-level vulnerabilities such as the enabling of the invoker servlet in Java systems, insecure entries in access control lists for gateway servers, vulnerable RFC destinations, missing security notes, and many other areas. It also monitors KPIs for user-level security including users with dangerous profiles such as SAP_ALL and unlocked standard users.

Q: Can you perform threat detection using MAI in Solution Manager?
A: Yes, MAI includes file and database connectors for real-time monitoring of event data captured in SAP logs. This includes the security audit log, HANA log, UME log, HTTP log, gateway server log, and the Read Access Log.

Q: Can you integrate MAI alerts with Security Information Event Management (SIEM) and incident management systems?
A: Yes, MAI alerts can be automatically forwarded to SIEM systems such as Splunk, ArcSight, and QRadar for event correlation and forensic analysis. Alerts can also be forwarded to incident management systems such as BMC Remedy and ServiceNow.

Q: Does Solution Manager provide best practices for alert handling?
A: Yes, the Guided Procedure (GP) Framework in Solution Manager provides best practices and standard operating procedures for investigating and resolving security alerts. This standardizes and improves incident management procedures and reduces response times. The guided procedures include automated steps to further improve incident handling.

Q: What are the main differences between SAP Enterprise Threat Detection (ETD) and threat detection using SAP Solution Manager?
A: SAP ETD provides more advanced capabilities for event correlation and forensic analysis. However, Solution Manager can forward event data to SIEM systems that can correlate and analyze data on a wider scale than ETD by combining data from SAP and non-SAP sources. Also, ETD does not monitor for system-level vulnerabilities or provide guided procedures for alert handling.

Q: What are the requirements for using the security applications in Solution Manager?
A: The security applications are available in any SP level of Solution Manager versions 7.1 and 7.2. The only requirements are the completion of the SOLMAN_SETUP procedures for the relevant version.

Q: What are the differences between Solution Manager 7.1 ad 7.2 for security monitoring?
A: The main difference is the user-experience. Solution Manager 7.2 provides the improved Fiori interface including a launchpad for direct access to applications. Some functions such as automatic download of SAP corrections in System Recommendations are only available in Solution Manager 7.2. Also, the dashboarding and interface monitoring capabilities are more advanced in the latest version of Solution Manager.

Q: How many environments and systems can you monitor with Solution Manager?
A: There are no limits on the number of environments or systems that can be monitored by Solution Manager. However, Solution Manager must be appropriately sized to monitor large landscapes.

Q: How long does it take to configure the security applications?
A: Typical implementation timeframes are between 2-4 weeks for mid-sized landscapes.

Q: If security applications are available in standard installations of Solution Manager, why do we need to work with SAP Partners such as Layer Seven Security to configure these components?
A: Solution Manager provides the framework and the tools to perform advanced security monitoring. However, the standard installation of Solution Manager does not provide sufficient content for security monitoring. The content is developed, maintained and supported by Layer Seven Security. This includes patent-pending custom security policies, BW infoproviders, service level reports, monitoring objects and guided procedures. The content is licensed by SAP customers from Layer Seven Security and imported or transported into Solution Manager.

Q: What are the benefits of using Solution Manager for security monitoring versus third party tools ?

A: There are many advantages for using Solution Manager over third party tools. The most significant is lower cost: licensing and importing content for Solution Manager is less expensive than licensing entire platforms and solutions for SAP security monitoring. Solution Manager is also more flexible and customizable. It’s also recommended by SAP and supported and maintained directly by SAP. For further information, download the comparison chart.

Q: Does Layer Seven Security provide online demos for security monitoring using Solution Manager?
A: Yes, you can request a demo here.

Q: Does Layer Seven Security provide free readiness checks and trials for security monitoring using Solution Manager?
A: Yes, we offer free readiness checks to discover and remove any configuration gaps in Solution Manager to support security monitoring. We also provide free trials for Layer Seven’s custom security content. The trials can be performed remotely or on-site for up to 5 systems.

Q: Who shall I contact for further information?
A: Please call Layer Seven Security at 1-647-964-7370 or email info@layersevensecurity.com

A First Look at Support Pack 5 of SAP Solution Manager 7.2

Layer Seven on June 26, 2017

Released earlier this month, Support Pack 5 for SAP Solution Manager 7.2 delivers important enhancements in several key areas. This includes support for exporting and importing solution documentation between systems, improved SAP-delivered solution blueprints, and an enhanced graphical editor for mapping business processes. SP05 also introduces a new Fiori App for Quality Gate Management in ChaRM. There are also new Fiori Apps for Data Volume Management to support data aging and identifying unused data.

For security, SP05 introduces several notable changes. Solution Manager Configuration and Administration now includes a tile for Security-Relevant Activities. This function can be used to check the status of authentication, connection, and user related activities required for the effective setup and operation of Solution Manager.

Solution Manager Configuration and Administration also includes a new scenario for setting up and tracking usage logging. Areas such as System Recommendations analyze usage data to identify the impact of changes and corrections on ABAP objects.

SP05 also introduces several functional improvements for System Recommendations. The available filters in System Recommendations now include a selection field for Note Number. This can be used to jump directly to specific Notes.

System Recommendations also includes a new tool for side-effect Notes. The tool was originally introduced in the SAP Marketplace in 2003 and enables users to identify interdependencies between SAP Notes and guard against the known side-effects of applying certain SAP Notes. Note 651948 discusses side-effects Notes.

Interface and Connection Monitoring (ICMon) includes an improved interface to drill down from monitoring overviews and topologies to the details of each interface channel. Users can also now assign severity ratings for ICMon alerts. SP05 widens the coverage for supported interface channels to include the SAP Application Interface Framework, SAP Information Lifecycle Management (SAP ILM) and Ariba Network. It also provides additional metrics for monitoring existing channels such as web services.

The Fiori launchpad for Solution Manager SP05 includes new tiles for the Guided Procedure Framework. The Guided Procedure Catalog can be used to browse available guided procedures. The Guided Procedure Usage tile can be used to access the execution logs for guided procedures. Available filters have also been improved to support selection for guided procedures based on technical systems and hosts.

Full details of the changes introduced with SAP Solution Manager Support Pack 05 are available at the SAP Help Portal.

Security KPI Monitoring with SolMan Dashboards

Layer Seven on March 28, 2017

SAP Fiori revolutionizes the user experience in Solution Manager 7.2. The dynamic tile-based layout replaces the work center approach in Solution Manager 7.1. In fact, since the Fiori launchpad provides direct and customizable access to applications, it virtually removes the role of work centers in Solution Manager. Fiori and Fiori Apps are the first pillar of the new user experience in Solution Manager. The second is the revised dashboard framework.

Both Fiori and the dashboard framework are built on HTML5-compliant SAPUI5 technology. Unlike the Flash-based dashboards in Solution Manager 7.1, dashboards in version 7.2 are compatible with most browsers and mobile devices. In common with the packaged dashboards available using the Focused Insights add-on, the dashboard framework includes a series of reusable dashboard templates to support application and cross-application scenarios. This includes areas such as availability and performance management, incident management and service management.

However, in contrast to Focused Insights and dashboards in Solution Manager 7.1, the new framework provides a flexible and user-friendly platform for creating custom dashboards to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) in SAP systems and landscapes, including security-relevant KPIs.

A dashboard consists of multiple tiles. Each tile is associated with a single KPI. Tiles can be clustered into groups within a dashboard. Once the option to a create new dashboard is selected (see below), users can select either standard tiles or create custom tiles for the dashboard. Standard tiles include predefined KPIs available from the SAP KPI Catalog.

For custom tiles, users can select from a variety of data sources including Business Warehouse. Security-related information such as vulnerabilities and missing security notes detected by Solution Manager are stored in InfoProviders within an internal Business Warehouse.

Once the data source is selected, users can maintain filters and thresholds to break down the results.

Users can also select the type of visualization for each tile including combination, micro, single, stack and table charts.

Dashboards support drill-down analysis by enabling users to navigate directly from summarized information in each tile to the detailed information in Business Warehouse. An example is provided below. The following dashboard monitors security KPIs for patch levels, network security, RFC security, access control, logging and auditing, and system configuration management. The highlighted tile in the dashboard displays the number of unapplied security notes for system PM1. A single click on the tile will display the details of the notes in a table that can then be exported directly to Excel.

Explore Service Level Reporting in SolMan 7.2

Layer Seven on February 27, 2017

Service Level Reporting (SLR) in SAP Solution Manager performs regular checks against key performance indicators using information available from the EarlyWatch Alert (EWA), Business Warehouse (BW) and the Computer Center Management System (CCMS). The checks can be for single systems or systems grouped into solutions. Reports run automatically on a weekly or monthly schedule but can also be triggered manually for on-demand reporting. SLRs can be displayed in HTML or Microsoft Word. SAP Solution Manger automatically distributes SLRs by email to recipients maintained in distribution lists.

Security-related metrics stored in internal or external BW systems can be read by SLR to create dynamic, detailed and user friendly vulnerability reports. This includes areas such as settings for profile parameters, access control lists in gateway security files, trusted RFC connections or destinations with stored logon credentials, unlocked standard users and standard users with default passwords, active ICF services, filter settings in the security audit log, missing security notes, and users with critical authorizations, profiles or transactions. For HANA systems, it includes database parameters, audit policies, the SYSTEM user, and users with critical SQL privileges. For Java systems, it includes properties for the UME and the invoker servlet. Furthermore, since event data from monitored systems is stored in BW and CCMS, SLR can also report on metrics for events in audit logs including the security audit log and syslog. The latter is particularly relevant for HANA systems which can write logs to operating system files.

SLRs are created and customized in the area for SAP Engagement and Service Delivery in the Fiori Launchpad.

Variants need to be maintained for each report including relevant systems, solutions, data sources, metrics, thresholds and schedule (weekly or monthly).

Once activated, the reports are executed by a regular automated job and accessed through the tile for Service Level Reports.

Comments can be included in SLRs before the reports are automatically distributed by email. SLRs include details of each vulnerability check, risk ratings, and links to relevant SAP Notes and documentation at the SAP Help Portal. Reports also include a gap assessment against compliance frameworks such NIST, PCI-DSS and IT-SOX. SLRs are archived by Solution Manager for trend analysis.

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.

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.

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

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.

Security in SAP HANA

Layer Seven on May 30, 2016

SAP HANA is now deployed by over 7,500 organizations worldwide. While this represents only a fraction of the 300,000 companies that use SAP software globally, adoption is growing rapidly, doubling in 2015 alone. As expected, the introduction of SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (S/4HANA) has accelerated this growth by widening the use-case for SAP HANA from analytics to transactional processing for core business processes.

While the performance and administrative benefits of SAP HANA are clear-cut, the benefits for security are more questionable. Unlike conventional persistent databases, HANA does not provide any native capability for label-based access control, data discovery and classification, data redaction and masking, or database firewalls. HANA also presents an architectural challenge for security engineers since some implementation scenarios integrate application and database layers that are traditionally hosted in separate physical or virtual servers.

SAP has addressed some of these concerns in later releases of HANA. SPS 12 includes features to isolate databases in multi-tenant environments to prevent cross-database attacks. It also includes more advanced logging capabilities to support multiple log formats and fine-grained audit policies. This is discussed in the newly updated whitepaper Security in SAP HANA, available in the resources section. The whitepaper provides a framework for securing HANA systems including network security, authentication and authorization, encryption for data in transit and at rest, and OS-level security for SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLES) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

HANA vulnerabilities such as potential misconfigurations in database parameters or users with special privileges should be monitored using SAP Solution Manager (SolMan). In common with other SAP systems, HANA is connected to and monitored by SolMan. Security-relevant data is extracted by agents from HANA and transmitted to SolMan for analysis. SolMan analyzes the data using rulesets to identify potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. The results are accessible through BW or BI including Lumira and Crystal Reports.

Rulesets benchmarked against best practices and SAP recommendations can be licensed from Layer Seven Security and imported directly into your Solution Manager platforms. To learn more, contact us.

US-CERT Issues Alert for SAP Invoker Servlet Vulnerability

Layer Seven on May 12, 2016

US-CERT published an alert yesterday to warn SAP customers of the dangers posed by the invoker servlet vulnerability in AS Java systems. According to the alert, there is evidence to suggest that SAP systems at 36 organizations have been exploited by the vulnerability. The organizations are based in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, China, India, Japan, and South Korea, and operate in industries that include oil & gas, telecommunications, utilities, retail, automotive and the pubic sector.

The invoker servlet vulnerability arises when servlets can be called directly either by servlet name or by fully-qualified class name. This can be exploited to bypass authentication and authorization rules defined in the web.xml files of Java applications. In the cases referenced by the US-CERT alert, attackers appeared to have exploited the invoker servlet to call a Java component that enabled them to execute OS commands and create user accounts in SAP systems.

The vulnerability was patched by SAP in 2010. SAP also modified the default configuration of AS Java to disable the invoker servlet in versions 7.20 and later. Corrections were provided in Notes 1445998 and 1467771. The evidence of the active exploitation of the invoker servlet vulnerability five years after the underlying flaw was patched by SAP demonstrates that the greatest risk posed to SAP systems is the exploit of known weaknesses rather than so-called zero-day vulnerabilities.

The invoker servlet should be disabled at a global level by setting the EnableInvokerServletGlobally key to false. The key is located in the global properties of each J2EE instance. You can follow the three steps below to discover systems in your landscape vulnerable to the exploit using SAP Solution Manager.

1. Create a target system in Configuration Validation to check the value of the key for all systems using the servlet_jsp store. See below.

2. Edit the target system by removing all parameters in the servlet_jsp store except EnableInvokerServletGlobally. Set the value for the key to true and maintain the weight/ info. See below.

3. Run the weighted validation report for all Java systems and review the results of systems with the EnableInvokerServletGlobally set to true. See below.

The invoker servlet vulnerability is one of the 500+ checks performed by security rulesets provided by Layer Seven for ABAP, Java, HANA, and database systems. The rulesets can be imported into your Solution Manager systems in seconds to perform daily automated scans for vulnerabilities in SAP systems. To learn more, contact Layer Seven Security.