SAP Authorizations - A Common Perspective of Developers and Consultants
Lack of know-how
When considering the security of SAP transport landscapes, it is not only the production system that is relevant for auditing. The other systems, including the development systems, must also be included in the risk considerations. The SAP_ALL profile is still frequently used there instead of concrete roles. This article identifies the main risk areas.
Business objects to which companies refer authorizations are defined in the system as authorization objects. For individual conditions, SAP delivers the authorization objects F_FICO_IND and F_FICO_AIN. With F_FICO_IND you can define which individual conditions are checked when processing the contract depending on the defined authorization fields and their characteristics. Using the authorization object F_FICO_AIN, companies can define whether and how individual conditions are to be checked when processing in the BAPI channel depending on the defined authorization fields and their characteristics.
Use SAP Code Vulnerability Analyser
Far more damage, however, can be caused by too extensive authorizations. For example, an employee may be authorized to access data for which he or she is not authorized. In the worst case, criminal activity can cause economic damage. To prevent this, an authorization concept must be in place that describes how authorizations are to be created and assigned to users.
The SAP Solution Manager is the central platform for all technically supported services, because information about the connected systems is available when you schedule data collections for these systems via background jobs. The documentation for the safe operation of SAP systems is compiled in the SAP End-to-End Solution Operations Standard for Security (Secure Operations Standard). It provides an overview of security aspects of SAP operations and is designed to guide you through the available information and recommendations and to refer you to relevant content.
Assigning a role for a limited period of time is done in seconds with "Shortcut for SAP systems" and allows you to quickly continue your go-live.
Customised programmes or customisations in the SAP Code Inspector ensure that all developers working in the company comply with these guidelines.
At www.sap-corner.de you will also find a lot of useful information on the subject of SAP authorizations.
The permission checks, including the time period delimitation, are implemented in the logical database and work for all reports based on a logical database (e.g. the RAGITT00 grid is based on SAPDBADA and the RFBILA00 balance sheet report is based on SAPDBSDF).