Firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and antivirus solutions may not protect SAP systems against advanced cyberattacks. However, this does not necessarily mean that SAP customers have to license third-party vulnerability scanning or threat detection solutions to deal with the risk. The answer to their security questions may be closer than they realize. Bundled with standard and enterprise SAP support agreements, SAP Solution Manager 7.2 includes five integrated applications to safeguard SAP systems against cyber threats:
Service Level Reporting (SLR)
Dashboard Builder
System Recommendations
Interface and Connection Monitoring (ICMon)
and the Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI)
On September 15, Equifax released a statement to confirm the initial attack vector that led to the compromise of personal information relating to 143 million consumers in the US, UK and Canada targeted an Apache Struts vulnerability within a web application that supports the organization’s online dispute portal. The patch for the vulnerability had been available since March but had not been applied by Equifax at the time the breach was detected on July 29. The patch was subsequently applied by Equifax but it was too late – the damage had been done.
Predictably, Equifax’s patching procedures have been cast into doubt with many questioning why the organization took four months to patch an external-facing web application that accessed large-volumes of sensitive information. The doubts were evidently shared by the Board of Directors at Equifax: both the Chief Information Officer and the Chief Security Officer were forced out last week.
Fortunately, few SAP applications are impacted by the Apache Struts vulnerability addressed by CVE-2017-5638. Although many SAP products including Banking, BusinessObjects, and Sybase use the Apache framework, very few products use the Struts library within the framework.
However, SAP customers are strongly advised to review and revise their patching efforts in light of the breach. Despite concerns related to zero-day vulnerabilities, the root cause of the vast majority of breaches remains poor security practices rather than zero-day attacks. This includes ineffective patching procedures that open a wide window of opportunity for attackers to exploit known vulnerabilities before they are patched by organizations. This point was emphasized by a statement from Fortinet with the recent release of the company’s Global Threat Landscape Report. According to Fortinet, “Cybercriminals aren’t breaking into systems using new zero day attacks, they are primarily exploiting already discovered vulnerabilities”.
SAP customers can discover and apply security patches for SAP products using System Recommendations (SysRec). SysRec is an application within SAP Solution Manager that connects directly to SAP Support for real-time patch updates. It also connects directly to each system within SAP landscapes to monitor patch levels. SysRec downloads corrections for security vulnerabilities from SAP Support to each system. It also integrates with other areas in Solution Manager including Usage Logging and Solution Documentation for change impact analysis, Change Request Management (ChaRM) for managing changes, and Test Management for testing and deployment.
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
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.
The results of the recent Verizon DBIR revealed significant differences between industries in terms of vulnerability patching. Organizations in sectors such as information technology and manufacturing typically remove over 75% of vulnerabilities within 3 weeks of detection. At the other end of the spectrum, 75% or more of vulnerabilities discovered in financial and public sector organizations and educational institutions remain unpatched for longer than 12 weeks after discovery.
The DBIR masks important differences between patching for devices and applications. Servers, for example, are generally more effectively patched than routers and switches.
Patch cycles for SAP infrastructure and applications are typically more drawn-out than most other technologies. There are several reasons for this. The most important is the lack of visibility into the impact of SAP patches. This leads to a reluctance to apply corrections that may disrupt the performance or availability of systems.
SAP Solution Manager 7.2 overcomes this challenge by enabling customers to pinpoint the impact of security notes before they are applied in systems. Change impact analysis is performed using Usage and Procedure Logging (UPL) and Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA) integrated with System Recommendations (SysRec).
SysRec provides a real-time analysis of missing security notes and support packs for ABAP and non-ABAP systems including Java and HANA. It connects directly to SAP Support to discover relevant notes and packs for systems configured in the LMDB – SolMan’s landscape information repository. It also connects to each managed system within SAP landscapes to check the implementation status of notes.
System Recommendations is accessed through the Change Management group in the Fiori launchpad for SAP Solution Manager.
The dashboard below is displayed after the SysRec tile is selected and summarizes notes across the landscape. IT Admin Role and System Priority are attributes maintained in the LMDB. Views can be personalized to sort or filter by attributes or notes.
You can apply a wider selection of filters in the detailed section of SysRec to further breakdown the results.
Once the filters are applied, the selection can be saved as a Fiori to tile to avoid reapplying the filters during future sessions. The tile is saved to the launchpad and the counter in the tile automatically updates based on the current status of the system.
The details for each note can be read by clicking on the short text.
The Actions option allows users to change the status of notes and add comments. Status options are customizable.
Corrections can be downloaded directly from SAP Support by selecting Integrated Desktop Actions – Download SAP Notes.
Once selected, you can change the target system before the download. The note will be available in SNOTE within the target system after the download.
Change impact analysis is performed at both a technical and business level. For technical analysis, SysRec reads data collected by Usage and Procedure Logging (UPL) to display information related to the usage level of objects such as programs, methods and function modules impacted by notes. This is performed by selecting the relevant notes and then Actions – Show Object List.
The results below reveal that Note 2373175 is impacting the standard SAP class CL_HTTP_SERVER_NET. This class was used 325311 times in system AS2 during the timeframe defined for UPL.
For business impact analysis, SysRec integrates with Business Process Change Analyzer (BPCA). BPCA reads solution documentation maintained in Solution Manager to discover modules, transactions, reports, and other areas impacted by notes.
SysRec’s ability to perform comprehensive and reliable change impact analysis for security notes enables customers to overcome one of the most significant roadblocks to effectively patching SAP systems. The usage data collected through UPL together with the solution documentation leveraged using BPCA provides SAP customers with the insights to develop test strategies targeted at the actual areas impacted by notes and narrow the window of vulnerability for unpatched systems.
In a forthcoming article, we will discuss how to import SAP templates and create and execute test plans using Test Management in SAP Solution Manager 7.2.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
