Threat Update: SAP Business Applications
May 11, 2016
It has been reported that over 35 organizations worldwide running outdated or misconfigured software are affected by an SAP vulnerability. Security researchers from Onapsis discovered indicators of exploitation against these organizations’ SAP business applications.
The observed indicators relate to the abuse of the Invoker Servlet, a built-in functionality in SAP NetWeaver Application Server Java systems (SAP Java platforms).
The Invoker Servlet contains a vulnerability that was patched by SAP in 2010. However, the vulnerability continues to affect outdated and misconfigured SAP systems.
SAP Java platforms are the base technology stack for many SAP business applications and technical components, including:
- SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),
- SAP Product Lifecycle Management (PLM),
- SAP Customer Relationship Management (CRM),
- SAP Supply Chain Management (SCM),
- SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SRM),
- SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW),
- SAP Business Intelligence (BI),
- SAP NetWeaver Mobile Infrastructure (MI),
- SAP Enterprise Portal (EP),
- SAP Process Integration (PI),
- SAP Exchange Infrastructure (XI),
- SAP Solution Manager (SolMan),
- SAP NetWeaver Development Infrastructure (NWDI),
- SAP Central Process Scheduling (CPS),
- SAP NetWeaver Composition Environment (CE),
- SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search,
- SAP NetWeaver Identity Management (IdM), and
- SAP Governance, Risk & Control 5.x (GRC).
The vulnerability resides on the SAP application layer, so it is independent of the operating system and database application that support the SAP system.
Exploitation of the Invoker Servlet vulnerability gives unauthenticated remote attackers full access to affected SAP platforms, providing complete control of the business information and processes on these systems, as well as potential access to other systems.
In order to mitigate this vulnerability, it is recommended that users and administrators implement SAP Security Note 1445998 and disable the Invoker Servlet.
Users and administrators should also:
- Scan systems for all known vulnerabilities, such as missing security patches and dangerous system configurations.
- Identify and analyze the security settings of SAP interfaces between systems and applications to understand risks posed by these trust relationships.
- Analyze systems for malicious or excessive user authorizations.
- Monitor systems for indicators of compromise resulting from the exploitation of vulnerabilities.
- Monitor systems for suspicious user behavior, including both privileged and non-privileged users.
- Apply threat intelligence on new vulnerabilities to improve the security posture against advanced targeted attacks.
- Define comprehensive security baselines for systems and continuously monitor for compliance violations and remediate detected deviations.
These recommendations apply to SAP systems in public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.
Herjavec Group circulates US – Cert advisories as this notification warrants attention and may have significance to your Enterprise network environment. If the following advisory is applicable to your environment, Herjavec Group recommends your IT team review the technical details included and monitor your environment for any susceptible systems. Herjavec Group’s analysts are working with applicable vendor partners to apply detection and mitigation strategies where appropriate. For Managed Services customers, our Managed Services team will engage with the appropriate technical contacts in your respective organizations directly to provide alerts, escalations, actions and or reports based our service agreement with you. If you have questions or concerns, please engage your Herjavec Group account representative directly or contact Herjavec Group.