TECHNOLOGY

Best Practices for Securing SAP Systems

Published

1 year ago

April 24, 2023

SAP systems play a crucial role in the operations of many organizations, from managing financial transactions to tracking inventory.

With the increasing risk of cyber attacks, securing vital organizational systems has become a top priority for businesses. In this article, we will discuss some best practices for securing SAP Security systems and effective risk management.

Understand the Associated Risks

Before delving into the best practices for securing SAP systems, understanding the potential risks associated with them is essential. Cybercriminals can exploit vulnerabilities in SAP systems to gain unauthorized access, steal sensitive data, and disrupt business operations. Some common risks associated with SAP systems include:

Unauthorized access to critical data and systems
Malware and virus attacks
Denial of service (DoS) attacks
Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks
SQL injection attacks

To effectively mitigate these risks, businesses must implement robust security measures to secure their SAP systems.

Best Practices for Securing SAP Systems

Regular Updates and Patches

Keeping your SAP systems updated with the latest patches and updates is crucial in mitigating potential security risks. Software vendors regularly release updates and patches to address vulnerabilities and security loopholes in their systems. By keeping your SAP systems updated, you can ensure that they are protected against the latest cyber threats.

Strong Password Policies

Weak passwords are a leading cause of security breaches in SAP systems. Businesses must implement strong password policies, such as enforcing complex passwords and regular password changes, to mitigate this risk. Companies can also implement two-factor authentication to include an extra layer of security.

Access Control

Limiting access to critical systems and data is essential in securing SAP systems. Businesses must ensure that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive information and that their access is restricted based on their job roles and responsibilities. Additionally, businesses can implement access control measures, such as multi-factor authentication and role-based access control, to enhance security.

Encryption

Encrypting sensitive data can effectively protect against data breaches and unauthorized access. Businesses can implement encryption technologies to protect their SAP systems’ data at rest and in transit.

Monitoring and Logging

Monitoring and logging are essential in detecting and responding to security incidents in SAP systems. Businesses must implement real-time monitoring and logging to identify potential threats and react quickly to security incidents.

Regular Security Audits

Regular security audits are crucial in identifying potential security loopholes and vulnerabilities in SAP systems. Businesses can conduct regular security audits to identify gaps in their security measures and implement effective risk management strategies.

Effective Risk Management Strategies

Effective risk management strategies involve proactive measures to mitigate potential security risks in SAP systems. Some effective risk management strategies include:

Threat Modeling

Threat modeling involves identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities in SAP systems and implementing security measures to mitigate them. Businesses can conduct threat modeling exercises to identify potential security risks and implement effective risk management strategies.

Incident Response Planning

Incident response planning involves developing a plan to respond to security incidents in SAP systems. Businesses can develop incident response plans to respond quickly to security incidents and minimize their impact on business operations.

Employee Training and Awareness

Employee training and awareness are essential in ensuring that personnel know potential security risks and how to respond to them. Businesses can conduct regular employee training and awareness programs to ensure personnel are well-equipped to handle potential security incidents.

Implement Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) offers an extra layer of security that needs users to provide two forms of identification before accessing the SAP system. The use of Two-factor authentication can help prevent unauthorized access even if a user’s password is compromised. Two-factor authentication is implemented using hardware tokens, software tokens, or SMS-based authentication.

Encrypt Sensitive Data

Encryption occurs when data is converted to a code to prevent unauthorized access. Businesses should implement encryption to protect sensitive data stored within the SAP system, such as customer information or financial data. Companies can implement encryption at the application, database, and network levels to protect data at all times.

Monitor Third-Party Access

Third-party vendors or contractors with access to the SAP system can pose a security risk. Businesses should implement controls to monitor and manage third-party access. These controls include reviewing the access privileges of third-party users, restricting their access to only what is necessary for their job, and monitoring their activity while they are logged into the SAP system.

Conclusion

Securing SAP systems is critical to effective risk management for organizations. With increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks, it is essential to implement best practices to protect sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access. When companies adopt a proactive approach to security, they can limit damage from data breaches and other security incidents resulting in possible financial losses and reputational damage.

Some key takeaways from this article include the need to conduct regular security assessments, establish clear security policies and procedures, implement access controls, and provide ongoing employee training. Additionally, organizations should consider using specialized security solutions designed for SAP systems and partnering with experienced security professionals who can help identify and address potential vulnerabilities.

Effective risk management requires a commitment to ongoing security and a willingness to adapt to changing threats. By implementing best practices for securing SAP systems, organizations can help protect critical business data and maintain the trust of their customers and stakeholders.

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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

Published

5 months ago

December 1, 2023

Max

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

5 months ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

5 months ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud