Planning & design of the system architecture
SAP Patch Manager (SPAM) (BC-UPG-OCS)
The SAP Basis is responsible for the smooth operation of the programmes in the SAP system. It acts as an operating system for R/3 and subsequent releases including S/4HANA. Each operating system provides an environment in which programmes can run, such as MS Office on Microsoft Windows. Likewise, the SAP base system with the NetWeaver and HANA platform offers an environment in which the SAP programmes can run. In this context, the NetWeaver platform itself relies on server operating systems such as Windows and Linux.
In this article on SAP Security Automation I would like to take a look at the future of automated processes in the SAP Security area. For many companies, the topic of security automation still offers a lot of potential in terms of time savings and process optimisation. Our daily work environment offers numerous tasks that could be handled excellently automatically. For this reason, in this article I present two of the possibilities that already exist in the broad area of security automation. Security Automation via SAP Security Check The first option of Security Automation, which I want to introduce here, is the automatic verification of the existing permissions. Have you ever wondered who has critical permissions in your SAP system? And have you ever tried to do this by hand? Depending on the level of expertise and experience of the privilege administrator, this is a time-consuming work. If an audit is also announced and the SAP system is to be checked for critical permissions and segregation of duties, then it is very difficult to meet all requirements and secure the eligibility landscape in this respect. For this reason, various vendors provide solutions to automate the verification of the permission system with regard to critical permissions and segregation of duties using tool support. This allows permission administrators to use their valuable time to correct the errors rather than just looking for them. For example, we use a tool that runs through the verification of over 250 rules. We then get an evaluation of which rules are violated and which points are correct. A simple example of such rules is the use of the SAP_ALL profile. Another would be to grant the jump permission in debugging (S_DEVELOP permission object with the ACTVT = 02 field). These are two relatively simple examples of Security Check tools' rulebook. In addition, queries are also made, which are located in the field of Segregation of Duties. Using this tool allowed us to move from manual validation of critical permissions to an automatic process.
Design of the SAP landscape
Only one transaction code can be entered here, otherwise a single role would always be searched, which includes all transactions searched for and is assigned to the respective user. However, since the transactions can also be assigned to the user via different roles, this would not be useful. If you use the above Input variants are also only considered transactions that have been maintained in the role menu. If it is not certain whether the transaction was entered in the menu or in the S_TCODE privilege object of the role, up to four transactions can also be checked by searching through the S_TCODE permission object. Important is the attention and appropriate use of the AND/OR relationship. After the query is executed, the roles that contain the requested transaction and are associated with the user are now displayed. If you use the search through the S_TCODE permission object, the following result page appears. When looking at the result, in addition to limiting the number of transactions that can be entered, another drawback of this variant becomes apparent: Although both associated roles are displayed, at first glance it is not possible to see which transaction is contained in which role. To do this, the roles would have to be considered individually. If more transactions with user assignment are to be identified at the same time and the role assignment is to be seen directly, the use of the transaction SE16N is recommended.
The Security Audit Log (SAL) is one of the most important elements when it comes to security in your SAP landscape. With SAL critical and security relevant activities in SAP systems can be recorded and evaluated. The settings in SAL are relevant for secure continuous operation.
With "Shortcut for SAP Systems" a tool is available that greatly facilitates some tasks in the SAP basis.
Application layer: The application layer is the central component of the SAP ERP system and is therefore also referred to as the base system.
To damage your system, the user will now search for the appropriate permissions and perform the attack under a false identity.