October 30, 2023

SAP BTP Security:
A Top Priority for 2024

What is SAP BTP Security?

SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is a cloud-based platform offered by SAP that provides a range of services and tools for building, extending, and integrating applications in the cloud. SAP BTP Security refers to the set of measures and practices implemented to protect the data, applications, and infrastructure within the SAP BTP environment.

Why is SAP BTP Security so crucial?

Ensuring security within SAP BTP is critical to protecting sensitive business information and maintaining the integrity of applications and services. The realm of security and compliance demands a comprehensive reevaluation. New organizational processes and responsibilities must be meticulously crafted, implemented, and monitored to prevent potential chaos.

In addition to the key security aspects and the coverage by the SecurityBridge Platform discussed later in this article, organizations that adopt SAP BTP must also diligently address the following critical tasks. These include defining a staging concept, establishing development guidelines, and taking measures to prevent the creation of uncontrolled BTP subaccounts that might compromise the established staging concepts.

What are the key aspects of SAP BTP Security?

While SAP BTP is a new field, we can already highlight some aspects of your security considerations that are vital for every organization that plans to adopt the SAP Business Technology Platform for productive use cases.

Identity and Access Management (IAM): SAP BTP provides IAM capabilities that allow organizations to manage user identities and control access to resources. It includes features such as single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure that only authorized users can access the platform’s services.
Data Encryption: Data at rest and in transit is typically encrypted to protect it from unauthorized access. SAP BTP uses encryption protocols to secure data both within the platform and while data is transferred between the platform and external systems.
Security Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of the SAP BTP environment is crucial to detect and respond to security threats. Security monitoring tools and practices identify suspicious activities and potential vulnerabilities.
Compliance and Governance: Organizations often must adhere to specific compliance requirements when using SAP BTP (such as GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific regulations). Compliance and governance features help ensure that the platform meets these requirements.
Application Security: Developers and administrators should follow best practices for securing the applications and services deployed on SAP BTP. This includes vulnerability assessments, code reviews, and regular updates to address security vulnerabilities.
Network Security: Proper network segmentation, firewalls, and network security measures are essential to protect against unauthorized access and network-based attacks.
Incident Response: In the event of a security breach or incident, a well-defined incident response plan should be in place to contain the threat, investigate the incident, and take appropriate action to mitigate the impact.
Security Training and Awareness: Ensuring all personnel interacting with SAP BTP are aware of security best practices and potential threats is vital. Training programs and awareness campaigns can help reduce the risk of human error.
Third-Party Integrations: When integrating third-party applications or services with SAP BTP, it’s fundamental to assess and ensure the security of these integrations to prevent vulnerabilities from being introduced.

To support the above security aspects, SAP provides the following security features to protect the BTP applications – encryption, default identity provider for enabling Single sign-on and authentication, audit logging, credential store, malware scanning, etc.

How does SecurityBridge cover SAP BTP?

It’s possible to connect the SecurityBridge Platform with SAP BTP to enhance the security of your cloud-based SAP solutions. Here’s how the SecurityBridge Platform can work in conjunction with SAP BTP:

Vulnerability Scanning in SAP BTP:

– If you have SAP applications or services running on SAP BTP, you can use SecurityBridge to conduct vulnerability scanning and assessments on these cloud-based SAP instances.

– This allows you to identify and address security weaknesses such as too many admin users, excessive rights granted to external users, invalid users, and configuration issues.

Continuous Monitoring:

– SecurityBridge provides continuous monitoring for on-premises and cloud-based SAP systems, including SAP BTP applications.

– This ensures you have visibility into security events such as admin rights assignment to users in real-time.

Integration with SAP BTP Services:

– The SecurityBridge platform can be integrated with SAP BTP subaccounts and global accounts.

– Integration involves leveraging APIs, command line interfaces, and connectors to collect security data from cloud-based SAP instances and feed it into the SecurityBridge platform for analysis.

Real-time Alerts and Notifications:

– SecurityBridge Threat Detection can generate real-time alerts and notifications for security incidents and vulnerabilities detected in SAP BTP environments.

– These alerts are to be sent to security teams for immediate response.

Incident Response in SAP BTP:

– In the event of a security incident or vulnerability discovery, SecurityBridge can provide guidance on incident response and remediation steps specific to SAP BTP environments.

Compliance and Reporting:

– The SecurityBridge platform can assist in ensuring that your cloud-based SAP solutions on SAP BTP comply with security and regulatory requirements.

– It can generate compliance reports and evidence to demonstrate adherence to security standards.

Threat Intelligence Integration:

– The SecurityBridge platform can integrate with threat intelligence sources to provide up-to-date information on threats and vulnerabilities that may impact SAP BTP deployments.

In conclusion, the SecurityBridge platform helps organizations proactively identify and respond to security threats and vulnerabilities in their SAP landscapes, ensuring the integrity and availability of critical SAP systems and data. It is a comprehensive solution for SAP security that combines scanning, monitoring, and incident response into a single platform.