Subject Area: SAP-ABAP (Security & Cybercrime Prevention)
Security in SAP ABAP development is paramount to protecting enterprise data and systems from breaches and cybercrimes. Real-world secure ABAP implementations provide valuable lessons on how organizations can design, develop, and maintain resilient SAP applications that mitigate risks and comply with security standards.
This article presents several case studies illustrating best practices and successful approaches to secure ABAP coding — helping SAP professionals learn from practical experiences to prevent SAP-ABAP crimes.
A global retail company developed a customer-facing SAP portal using ABAP and SAP Gateway services. The portal accepted various user inputs to search and filter customer orders.
Initial implementation used dynamic SQL queries constructed by concatenating user input directly, exposing the system to SQL injection attacks.
No SQL injection vulnerabilities were found in subsequent security audits. The portal operated securely with enhanced performance due to optimized queries.
An SAP HR module allowed employees to upload personal documents. The system needed to prevent unauthorized file access and path traversal attacks.
The initial file handling logic accepted file paths from users without validation, risking directory traversal exploits.
../.Path traversal and unauthorized access incidents were eliminated. Compliance with corporate data protection policies was achieved.
A financial services provider needed to ensure that only authorized users could execute sensitive payment transactions within SAP.
Early versions lacked comprehensive authorization checks in custom ABAP reports, risking privilege escalation.
AUTHORITY-CHECK for specific authorization objects.Unauthorized transaction attempts were blocked effectively. Audit trails improved, supporting regulatory compliance.
These case studies demonstrate how thoughtful design and disciplined implementation of security measures in ABAP development can thwart various SAP-ABAP crimes. Organizations can leverage these insights to build secure applications that protect their SAP environments and comply with evolving security requirements.
By adopting a proactive approach to secure coding, validation, authorization, and auditing, SAP teams strengthen their defenses against cyber threats — turning secure ABAP implementations into strategic assets.