Security
Secure products
Guidelines, tools, and training help maintain security throughout the architecture, design, implementation, and delivery of a product.
Secure operations
Product security response processes and experts ensure smooth data center operations 24x7 with continuous testing and monitoring.
Secure company
SAP employees and partners follow security standards, and we strengthen the human resource firewall through mandatory security trainings.
Security offerings
Security products, professional services, and education help users implement, build, and operate a first-class security environment.
Data center security
Continuous technology and infrastructure testing helps ensure that the data center is running smoothly around the clock.
Security in the digital economy
Everything is connected – therefore, security is everything
With the fast evolving digitalization of business processes and the relationships between people, information, and assets, security is a main concern that needs to be addressed. SAP delivers a 360 degree approach to covering all security aspects from secure products to secure operations.
Corporate security
Our customers expect ironclad information security for their on-premise, cloud, and mobile environments. For this reason, we work continuously to strengthen and improve security features in all of our software and service offerings as well as to protect our own company and assets.
Recommendations for securing SAP solutions
Processor-based vulnerabilities
At the beginning of 2018, with Spectre (and Meltdown), a new class of vulnerabilities was published. In the following months, new variants have been discovered and published under the same pseudonym. Ongoing research and publication of new vulnerabilities and attacks suggest that the topic will continue to be relevant in the future. The common denominator of these vulnerabilities is that they are mostly caused by the architectural (hardware) design of the CPU that affects nearly every computer chip manufactured in the last 20 years. These vulnerabilities could, if exploited, allow attackers to gain access to data previously considered protected. Possible attacks are called side-channel attacks, in which the execution speed (timing) of certain operations could allow the removal of memory contents that are normally not accessible. From a security perspective, the concerns include the breaking of boundaries within virtualized environments.
How is SAP affected?
SAP thoroughly investigates the impact of these vulnerabilities and is closely aligning with corresponding vendors, providers, and the Open Source community. SAP works on investigating if, where, and how our platforms, databases, applications, and cloud operations are affected.
SAP is taking a proactive approach and is fixing potential flaws derived from hardware side-channel attacks without undue delay. You can find more information on our patching progress for our Cloud environments here (registration required). As a consumer of affected software and hardware, we largely depend on the availability of patches provided by respective vendors, providers, or the Open Source community. The schedule of applying appropriate patches is, to a large extent, determined by their availability.
Recommendation to customers
SAP recommends that all customers carefully monitor and follow the advice on implementing security patches provided by hardware and operating system providers as soon as they become available. SAP will apply fixes to its cloud infrastructure without undue delay. SAP Global Security is constantly monitoring the situation.
Vulnerability variants
Each variant was given its own CVE number (updated November 6, 2018):
- PortSmash CVE-2018-5407
- L1 Terminal Fault (CVE-2018-3646, CVE-2018-3620 and CVE-2018-3615)
- Variant 4–Spectre NG (CVE-2018-3639)
- Variant 3a–Spectre NG (CVE-2018-3640)
- Variant 3–Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754)
- Variant 2–Spectre (CVE-2017-5715)
- Variant 1–Spectre (CVE-2017-5753)
Each of these vulnerability variants may be exploited to read confidential data such as CPU or kernel memory. The level of criticality and potential for exploitation differs between each of the variants.
Further vendor information about before mentioned security vulnerabilities, resources and responses:
Please note that SAP is not liable for any content on these external sites.
Hear from security experts
Security in the Intelligent Enterprise
Are you using the security capabilities built into your enterprise applications? Listen to IDC analyst Rob Westervelt explain why security solutions are becoming more complex to manage and a fundamental element of the SAP Intelligent Enterprise.
Cloud security at SAP
Discover how SAP addresses one of the critical requirements companies demand when moving to the cloud – the underlying security and trust architecture of the services and products.
Secure products
A secure software development lifecycle
Discover the security phases of product development for on-premise or cloud-based use. Look at our framework for integrating security throughout the lifecycle of standard software products from SAP.
Product security strategy
Protecting data by building safe software is core in our product security strategy. At SAP, prevention, detection, and reaction are the three pillars of this strategy.
Secure source code scanning
Increase the security of your software development efforts. Apply the same automated source code scans that SAP uses to detect and eliminate security flaws at an early stage in the development cycle.
Security validation
Security research
Secure operations
Cloud security and data center strategy
Using SAP S/4HANA in a public cloud environment requires a strong security framework. An important part of this is the secure network architecture, which is demonstrated by certifications proving that proper measures are in place.
Identity lifecycle in hybrid landscapes
The support of common security standards helps to integrate into hybrid, multi cloud landscapes seamlessly. To secure data properly SAP provides reference architecture for identity and access management and strong authentication.
Data classification
Customer data is protected from unauthorized access even by SAP employees with the classification as “confidential”. To access customer systems, such as SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, a two-factor authentication process is required.
Report a potential security issue to SAP
SAP is committed to identifying and addressing every security issue that affects SAP software and cloud solutions. If you want to report a potential security issue, please visit this page.
Secure company
Trusted security
Secure your technology environment with attention to people, processes, and technology. Consider data-center best practices for innovating and operating confidently, while building security into critical systems.
Secure cloud
Promote data privacy and cybersecurity in the cloud to Run Simple. Learn how SAP Cloud Secure services can help you comply with legislation by increasing transparency into system controls and measures.
Get the latest news and trends from experts
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Arming your business with high-level threat intelligence is the best way to take back initiative from the attackers because you can identify potential malicious activity before it happens.
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Understand security risk assessment (threat modelling) in SAP SSDL
In SAP secure software development life-cycle (SSDL) methodology, the first stage is performing ‘risk assessment’ on all SAP products.
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Join us at the SAP Insider Conferences 2019
Join our security experts at the SAP Insider events coming up in 2019! Both Basis and SAP Administration 2019 and GRC 2019 are taking place at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, March 19-21.
