What is SOC?

A Security Operations Center (‘SOC’) is a centralized function responsible for monitoring, detecting, investigating, and responding to cybersecurity threats and incidents in an organization. It serves as the nerve center for an organization’s cybersecurity defenses, ensuring systems, networks, applications, and data remain secure against evolving cyber threats. It typically uses tools such as Security Information and Event Management (‘SIEM’), Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (‘SOAR’) and Endpoint Detection and Response (‘EDR’). SOC improves cybersecurity posture through a rapid detection & response to threats, reducing the likelihood of successful attacks, and helps maintain compliance with data protection laws and industry regulations. A SOC provides a unified view of an organization’s cybersecurity landscape, making it easier to manage and address threats.

Monitoring SAP security

Monitoring SAP security is crucial for organizations using SAP systems to manage critical business operations. SAP systems often contain sensitive financial, operational, and customer data, making them a prime target for cyberattacks. SAP systems host core business processes such as finance, human resources, supply chain management, and customer relationship management. Unauthorized access or data breaches can lead to:

• Direct financial losses due to theft or fraud (e.g., manipulation of financial data)
• Indirect costs such as penalties, lawsuits, and reputational damage
• Loss of sensitive data (e.g., financial reports, customer information)
• Exposure of trade secrets or intellectual property
• Regulatory or compliance issues
• Downtime, halting key business operations like payroll, supply chain, or production, etc

The sophistication of cyberattacks targeting ERP systems, including SAP, is increasing. Threat actors are exploiting various misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, outdated SAP components and Privileged user accounts.

SAP often underpins critical business processes and stores highly sensitive data, making it a high-value target for cyberattacks. SAP systems are vulnerable not only to external threats but also to insider threats (e.g., disgruntled employees, accidental misuse).

Proactively monitoring SAP security minimizes the risk of such incidents and associated costs. Monitoring allows organizations to detect and respond to emerging threats in their SAP systems promptly. Therefore, you would expect organizations to cover SAP systems as part of their SOC.

The missing piece

However, SOC operations for most organizations misses one key component – it often does not have a view of cybersecurity threats in their crown jewel system – SAP.  These are driven by various issues including shortage of skilled personnel with knowledge of SAP cybersecurity, integration issues and lack of knowledge of available tools to monitor SAP cybersecurity.

What is required?

It is important that organization ensure that their SAP systems are monitored as part of SOC operations. Integrating SAP into SOC operations enhances the organization’s ability to detect, prevent, and respond to security threats.

It is important to implement SAP security monitoring tools to

• Provide visibility into all potential attack surfaces
• Provide real-time alerts for suspicious activities
• Highlight security trends and vulnerabilities
• Provide visibility into unauthorized or anomalous actions
• Provide dashboard and reports for management reporting

The SAP security monitoring tool can generate logs and alerts for

• Unauthorized access attempts
• Anomalous user behaviour
• Configuration changes

The SAP security monitoring tool should be integrated with SOC/ SIEM to correlate SAP-specific security events with broader security incidents. Integrating SAP into these tools allows SOC teams to monitor and analyze SAP activity alongside other IT systems and this will provide end-to-end security monitoring across the organization.

Conclusion

Monitoring SAP security is not just an IT requirement but a critical business imperative. It safeguards sensitive data, ensures compliance, minimizes financial and operational risks, and enables an organization to maintain a competitive edge. Several solutions are available for monitoring SAP cybersecurity, ranging from native SAP tools to third-party platforms. The ROI of investing in SAP security monitoring tools far outweighs the potential costs of neglecting it.

A SOC plays a critical role in defending organizations against the ever-growing complexity of cyber threats. Where an organization uses SAP, it should be included in their SOC and should be proactively monitored. Monitoring SAP as part of SOC operations is essential for maintaining a robust security posture. It not only protects critical business assets but also ensures compliance and operational continuity.

It is also important to note the SOC should be equipped with adequate knowledge of SAP security. Organizations without in-house SAP security expertise can leverage Managed SAP Security Services providers such as Hexadius who can plug gap the SAP security knowledge gap.

Organizations should prioritize SAP monitoring within their broader cybersecurity strategy to mitigate risks effectively. Investing in SAP monitoring is often more cost-effective than remediating a major breach.