SAP Data at Risk: Internal Threats and the Need for Data-Centric Security

Many organizations focus on external threats when it comes to cybersecurity. Hackers, malware, and cyberattacks dominate the headlines. But what about the threats that come from within? Disgruntled employees, accidental data breaches, and social engineering attacks can all expose your sensitive SAP data.

In this complex landscape, data-centric security is crucial for protecting your SAP data and systems. A successful data-centric strategy incorporates both detective and preventative controls. This ensures your organization can detect access anomalies, dynamically protect sensitive data, and prevent non-compliance with GDPR, SOX, and ITAR regulations.

The Need for a Data-Centric Cybersecurity Approach in SAP

Pathlock offers a revolutionary data-centric cybersecurity solution tailored to safeguard your SAP data against internal threats. Securing your SAP applications and sensitive data from within requires proactive and preventative security measures to ensure that your crown jewels are protected on a least-privilege basis.

Preventative Controls: Least Privilege Security and Dynamic Data Protection

The Dynamic Access Controls module from Pathlock delivers a robust Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) model that ensures only internally authorized users that satisfy specific attribute requirements receive data access permissions. ABAC enables your organization to easily apply more precise access controls across a broader user base without needing time-consuming and redundant authorizations on a per-user basis. This ensures your organization can orchestrate user access more efficiently and securely as your business and critical systems scale.

Additionally, Pathlock’s Dynamic Access Controls module provides these data-centric security controls:

Dynamic Data Masking:

This capability adds an additional layer of data security granularity. By utilizing various parameters around access control and user permissions to determine data availability, your sensitive data can be dynamically masked in scenarios where users’ access indicates a risk of data exfiltration. This preventative control enforces a least-privilege security model, ensuring that even authorized users only have access to data on a need-to-know basis.

Data Scrambling:

This capability obfuscates SAP data, rendering sensitive information indecipherable to users without strict access authorizations. If an internal user with escalated privileges attains access, the data is anonymized to prevent malicious exfiltration. This preventative control protects test data in pre-production SAP environments. It also maintains data security while in transit during system upgrades between pre-production and production environments.

Data Loss Prevention:

This capability ensures that no sensitive information leaves your SAP environment’s boundary without proper authorization. It continuously monitors data transfers, preventing intentional and unintentional data transmissions, leaks, and exfiltration that indicate risk and could be exploited by internal threat actors.

Detective Controls: Continuous Monitoring and Visibility of Access Anomalies

Pathlock’s Threat Detection and Response module and Session Logging capability enable you to track every internal user action within your SAP environment in real time, allowing you to identify suspicious behavior and potential breaches before they happen. If an internal threat anomaly is detected, our real-time logs automatically flag the suspicious activity and enable targeted forensic investigations, rapid remediation, and effective post-incident analysis. This detective control is the key to understanding the source, scope, and potential impact of a data security incident.

Pathlock Protects Your Sensitive SAP Data from Internal Exploits

Pathlock’s Cybersecurity Application Controls product empowers organizations to establish a multi-layered approach to SAP cybersecurity. By leveraging preventative and detective controls, Pathlock enables companies to proactively harden their SAP systems while also eliminating the risk of costly data exfiltration.

Pathlock equips customers with robust capabilities to establish a data-centric SAP cybersecurity strategy through five integrated modules:

• Dynamic Access Controls
• Vulnerability Management
• Threat Detection and Response
• Code Scanning
• Transport Control

These modules help CAC customers secure sensitive data while also hardening the business-critical applications that store it.

To see how Pathlock can help your organization protect against external threats with a data-centric SAP cybersecurity strategy, reach out to set up a demo today.