In today’s increasingly digitized business environment, SAP systems are critical to enterprise operations, managing everything from financials and supply chain to human resources. With their integral role, SAP landscapes become attractive targets for cyber attackers. Understanding the attack vectors and techniques used to compromise SAP environments is crucial for effective threat detection and mitigation.
An attack vector refers to the path or method a hacker uses to breach a system’s security and gain unauthorized access. In SAP environments, these vectors exploit vulnerabilities within the SAP software, network infrastructure, or user behavior, enabling attackers to infiltrate and manipulate sensitive business data.
SAP-specific attack vectors can include:
Attackers employ a variety of techniques to exploit these vectors. Understanding these techniques helps SAP Enterprise Threat Detection (ETD) systems identify suspicious activities early.
Attackers often try to elevate their access privileges beyond those initially compromised. For example, a user with limited access might exploit SAP roles and authorization weaknesses to gain administrative control. Privilege escalation can be performed through:
SAP systems often allow custom ABAP code or user exits. Attackers can inject malicious code or exploit vulnerabilities in custom developments to execute unauthorized commands or exfiltrate data.
Attackers may perform unauthorized or fraudulent transactions by bypassing SAP’s business logic or approval workflows, potentially leading to financial fraud, data theft, or operational disruption.
Once inside the SAP system, attackers seek to extract sensitive data such as customer information, financial reports, or intellectual property. This can be achieved through:
Attackers attempt to gain access through systematic password guessing or dictionary attacks on SAP user accounts. Weak password policies exacerbate this risk.
By intercepting SAP GUI sessions or network traffic, attackers can hijack active sessions or replay authentication tokens to impersonate legitimate users.
SAP ETD is a real-time monitoring and detection tool designed to uncover threats based on behavioral anomalies and known attack patterns in SAP environments. ETD analyzes logs and system activities to identify indicators of compromise related to these attack vectors and techniques.
Conclusion
Understanding attack vectors and techniques is foundational to securing SAP environments. By leveraging tools like SAP Enterprise Threat Detection alongside robust security policies, organizations can proactively defend against sophisticated threats and ensure the integrity of their critical business systems.