Zero Trust for SAP – Mission Impossible?

Amongst the cybersecurity principles, Zero Trust is considered fundamental when it comes to effectively protecting today’s IT environments and business applications regardless of whether they are operated on-prem or in the cloud. The key difference is that Zero Trust assumes attackers may already be inside the environment. This principle shifts traditional static, perimeter-based cybersecurity into a dynamic approach that demands continuous authorization verification.  

However, this is not only hard to implement and enforce in complex landscapes like SAP, but it also impacts the user experience significantly. And it is the user acceptance that makes security concepts effective and successful. Otherwise, users will try to bypass the security hurdles or complain about efficiency loss which again forces lowering the security level. When applied to SAP, Zero Trust demands that every user, frontend device, and transaction be explicitly verified, context-aware, and tightly constrained to the minimum necessary privilege across a highly interconnected, business‑critical landscape. 

Looking at the reality of complex, often hybrid, SAP environments, one could say that this can only be a “mission impossible”. So, let’s have a look at what Zero Trust means for SAP in detail and what the mandatory prerequisites are for having a chance to implement this efficiently in today’s SAP landscapes.  

What is Zero Trust and what does it mean for SAP? 

Traditional security models were built on the idea of a “trusted internal network” protected by firewalls, VPNs, and network segmentation, with strong controls at the boundary and relatively relaxed controls inside. Zero Trust challenges this by eliminating implicit trust based on network location, VPN use, or prior authentication and instead requires continuous verification of identity, device posture, and context for every access request. For SAP, this means every dialog user, technical user, RFC connection, API integration, and admin action must be authenticated, authorized, monitored, and constrained by least privilege. Every action is treated as potentially hostile until it is proven safe, and access is granted only for the specific resource and time needed.​ 

Zero Trust architecture typically relies on several core principles: verify explicitly, use least privilege access, and assume breach. Each of them comes with certain prerequisites:  

• “Verify explicitly” requires strong identity assurance, device and network checks, and behavioral evaluation before authorizing access. 

• “Least privilege” means that users and services receive only the entitlements required for their tasks, thereby limiting lateral movement.  

• The “assume breach” mindset drives organizations to design controls under the expectation that attackers may already possess valid credentials or a foothold inside the environment, which in turn leads to strict traffic controls, robust logging, and real‑time threat detection as first‑class design goals rather than afterthoughts.​ 

In a Zero Trust SAP environment, access to systems and data is not static anymore. Elevated rights for administrators and emergency users become just‑in‑time and time‑bound, with full recording and review, while high‑risk business actions such as vendor bank account changes, payment releases, or tax configuration updates can trigger step‑up authentication or multi‑factor authentication (MFA) challenges.  

Instead of relying on a single authentication event at logon, the SAP environment adopts continuous verification of identity and intent, integrating with Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM), and Threat Detection tools as part of a unified Zero Trust fabric. Continuous monitoring of SAP logs and events to detect anomalies, fraud patterns, and abuse of privileged accounts becomes a must with Zero Trust.  

This also requires SAP Security to be holistic: Patch Management, Threat Detection, and Vulnerability Management must work together, which naturally aligns with Zero Trust concepts. ​So, now that it is clear what needs to be done, let’s have a look at the challenges associated with this in SAP environments. 

Cybersecurity challenges in SAP 

Historically, many SAP landscapes were designed under the assumption that the internal network, VPN users, and administrators were trustworthy, and the SAP authorization concept was used mainly for compliance and segregation of duties rather than as a true cyber‑defense mechanism. Aligning SAP with Zero Trust requires rethinking this model so that SAP itself becomes a Zero Trust domain, not a trusted island behind perimeter defenses. But applying Zero Trust in SAP is not simply a matter of adding more authentication; it runs into structural challenges related to visibility, patching, and the complexity of vulnerabilities in large, customized landscapes.  

Effective Threat Detection  

One of the most pressing issues is Threat Detection. Many organizations still treat SAP logs as audit artifacts, which leaves them blind to credential abuse, privilege escalation, and data manipulation performed through otherwise “legitimate” transactions. Moreover, standard SAP logs are written after the fact and often lack rich context such as device identity or strong user fingerprinting. Traditional log analysis is insufficient for modern threat scenarios, which delays detection and leaves SOC teams blind to SAP-specific risks, like 

• Abuse legitimate SAP transactions, RFCs, or background jobs to exfiltrate or manipulate data, blending into normal business activity. 

• Exploit misconfigurations, weak segregation of duties, or overprivileged accounts to commit fraud or pivot between systems. 

• Use zero-day or “not yet patched” vulnerabilities to gain initial access and then rely on SAP authorizations and custom code backdoors to remain undetected. 

Timely patching and zero-days 

Most organizations maintain heterogeneous SAP landscapes spanning on‑premise, private cloud, and SaaS components. In such environments, maintaining an accurate inventory of vulnerable components and their patch levels is complex, and misaligned patching creates uneven risk surfaces that attackers can exploit. Timely SAP patching in such cases is notoriously challenging because of: 

• Business critical nature of SAP systems, creating resistance to frequent downtime and change. 

• Complex transport landscapes where patches and Security Notes must be tested across development, QA, and production. ​ 

• Dependencies between components and addons that make rapid patching risky without strong regression testing. 

As SAP releases security notes and patches on a monthly cadence (on “Patch Tuesday”), and some vulnerabilities carry critical or “Hot News” ratings, even the most efficient Patch Management processes still have significant exposure windows that allow attackers to intrude SAP systems. 

Vulnerabilities due to complex system configurations 

The vulnerability landscape in SAP is further complicated by complex multitier environments with: 

• Multiple products (ECC, S/4HANA, PI/PO, BTP) and thousands of configuration parameters influencing security posture. 

• Custom code, user exits, enhancements, and interfaces that introduce application level vulnerabilities beyond standard SAP notes. ​ 

• Hybrid deployments combining on-premise systems, cloud services, and third-party integrations, each with different security controls and shared responsibilities. 

Furthermore, misconfigurations in roles, profiles, and RFC destinations can interact in subtle ways to create high risk privilege combinations that are not obvious from a single system’s perspective, while cross system workflows can turn individually harmless permissions into powerful attack chains. 

How to address these challenges for Zero Trust 

A Zero Trust approach requires addressing these challenges or implementing effective compensating controls where risk cannot be reduced to null or almost null.  

The key element for reducing security risk is to reduce the attack surface. In SAP environments, this means to effectively harden each SAP system with a continuous Vulnerability Management process. SAP teams need therefore a “security roadmap” that prioritizes remediation by risk and effort. Without such automation, it is almost impossible to get SAP systems clean and keep them hardened over time, reducing the potential impact if a vulnerability is exploited before patching. 

A way to mitigate the exposure window due to the time needed to patch SAP systems, is to integrate Patch Management with Threat Detection. The result is a “virtual patching,” where Threat Detection rules are rapidly updated to monitor exploitation patterns until the actual SAP patch is applied. This concept is essential in a Zero Trust context, where detection and response act as compensating controls when patching lags. 

Another compensating control is to no longer grant privileged access by default or indefinitely. Instead, a Privileged Access Management (PAM) framework is used to enforce just‑in‑time elevation, strong authentication, and comprehensive monitoring of all privileged activities. For SAP, this means replacing permanent superuser roles with controlled workflows where users request elevated access for specific tasks and time windows, are strongly authenticated, and have their sessions recorded and subject to post‑incident review. 

When PAM is integrated with runtime analytics and Threat detection focused specifically on SAP, privileged activity can be evaluated in context: unusual times, locations, or chains of transactions can generate high‑priority alerts or even trigger automatic session termination.  

Triggering an MFA challenge when users initiate one of these actions interrupts the attack chain for adversaries who rely on stolen passwords or session hijacking while imposing only short, targeted prompts on legitimate users. This approach is consistent with industry guidance that recommends integrating MFA into business workflows and administrative toolsets rather than limiting it to network access or VPN logons. 

Rather than relying solely on MFA at SAP system logon, Zero Trust designs apply step-up authentication selectively at the level of critical SAP transactions, configuration changes, or data exports, providing strong security without overwhelming users. These solutions can inspect the action a user is attempting within SAP, evaluate risk signals from identity providers, device health, and behavioral analytics. And then decide in real time whether to allow, block, or require step‑up proof such as an authenticator push, token, or biometric challenge. By embedding this logic directly into SAP user flows, step‑up authentication creates a fine‑grained trust fabric that aligns more closely with how attackers actually target SAP through compromised credentials and misuse of legitimate transactions. 

Conclusion 

For organizations that extend SAP access to contractors, service providers, and third party support partners, Zero Trust is best viewed as a strategic framework that, when combined with SAP-specific tooling and practices, can substantially mitigate the main SAP cybersecurity challenges.  

Step-up authentication with MFA becomes a key safeguard against supply chain and partner originated risks. When combined with just-in-time PAM workflows, external users can be granted temporary, tightly scoped access that is always mediated by strong authentication, granular policies, and full auditability, which is far more aligned with Zero Trust than the traditional practice of granting broad, enduring accounts to external administrators.  

Over time, integrating SAP-aware step-up authentication with enterprise IAM, PAM, and security analytics creates an ecosystem where identity, risk context, and application behavior are continuously correlated, embedding Zero Trust principles deep into the heart of the organization’s most critical business systems. 

Are you interested in learning how adopting Zero Trust for SAP can be the fastest and most efficient way to achieve a mature SAP Security posture?     

Contact us  and we will be happy to tell you more about our guided approach to SAP Security excellence. For more SAP security-related news, articles, and whitepapers, please follow us on LinkedIn!