Cyber Defense

Firewall Abap code

20 years ago, the unknown Abap code and tables of an R/3 system were certainly sufficient protection against hacker attacks. The ERP world market leader was already successful worldwide with SAP R/3 at that time, but still out of sight of traditional hackers and cybercriminals who focused on Windows and desktop systems. Abap was a natural boundary protection at the time of "I love you".

Java and Open Source

While SAP R/3 was still a black box, ERP/ECC 6.0 marked the beginning of an opening towards the World Wide Web and compatible competitors. A successful partnership between SAP and Microsoft emerged, and with it the merging of ECC and Office. In addition to the Abap stack, SAP established a Java stack in the NetWeaver middleware, which delighted and motivated many programmers, but also made the systems compatible for hacker attacks. In terms of security, a new era began.

Security Dashboard

The DSAG association, German-speaking SAP user group, was one of the first to recognize the dangers and demand a security dashboard for SAP systems. What SAP promised for a long time and still promises today, SAP partners have now realized. In the current E3 cover story of the September 2023 supplement for Manager Magazin, you can read about the options available for protecting an SAP system against cyberattacks. The attack parameters are currently many times greater than they were 25 years ago. Back then, an R/3 system required only rudimentary protection. A networked S/4 system in the cloud of a hyperscaler requires considerably more protective mechanisms. Successful cyber defense currently requires a great deal of experience, knowledge and perfect tools. Details can be found in the September supplement of the upcoming Manager Magazine and in advance here on the E3 website.