Why Governance Tools Miss What Hackers Exploit

Key Takeaways

• Compliance Does Not Equal Security: SAP GRC supports audits and controls but does not protect against live cyber threats.
• Lack of Real-Time Detection Creates Exposure: Without continuous monitoring, attackers can operate undetected for extended periods.
• Periodic Risk Assessments Are Insufficient: Scheduled reviews leave gaps that attackers can exploit between cycles.
• Integration Gaps Weaken Security Posture: Poor connectivity with SIEMs, endpoint tools, and scanners creates blind spots and slows response.
• Technical Vulnerabilities Go Unseen: SAP GRC does not identify misconfigurations, missing patches, or custom code flaws.
• Custom ABAP Code Is a Major Risk Vector: Unscanned custom code introduces exploitable weaknesses such as SQL injection and hardcoded credentials.

Deep Dive

SAP systems store sensitive business data, run mission-critical processes, and ensure that operations continue uninterrupted. However, having the SAP GRC product suite or similar governance, risk, and compliance tools does not cover all aspects of system security. Relying on them to keep you safe is a recipe for infiltration.

Relying on compliance with audit requirements doesn't mean that you are protected against cyberattacks. In addition, governance tools (such as GRC) do not detect cyber threats as they occur, and ensuring you are ready for a scheduled audit does not guarantee immunity from attacks. Poor integration with other components of your security ecosystem, inability to real-time scan for lateral movement vulnerabilities, and overlooking the regular scanning of ABAP (advanced business application programming) code are all problems that need addressing.

This article will explain these inadequacies, omissions, and how to address them.

Compliance ≠ Security

The first thing to understand is that compliance does not necessarily equate to security. SAP GRC can help manage risk and ensure compliance with internal controls and regulations. However, as stated earlier, merely meeting audit requirements does not guarantee protection against cyberattacks. Locking your front door may satisfy stipulations in your insurance policy, but if you leave the windows open, burglars can still gain entrance. Compliance will not prevent cyberattacks.

No Real-Time Threat Detection

The second element to understand follows logically from the first: you must have real-time threat detection. Tools such as GRC are not designed to detect cyber threats as they happen. Notifications of attack will not be delivered if someone is attempting to log in with false credentials or accessing sensitive data at unusual times of the day (ie, outside regular business hours). If you do not have real-time detection, hackers may have already infiltrated your system days or even months ago.

Reactive Risk Models

It's common for GRC tools to put risk assessments on a periodic schedule—say monthly, quarterly, or annually. If you're delaying evaluation of risks for weeks or months, then you're leaving your organization exposed. Itś essential to adhere to these schedules to avoid elevated risk exposure.

Poor Integration = Blind Spots

It's common for GRC tools to have difficulty integrating with other components of your security ecosystem. For example, suppose these tools are not connected to SIEM systems, endpoint tools, or vulnerability scanners. In that case, you will have blind spots in your overall security posture and slower incident response times.

Lack of Vulnerability Management

Many organizations are unaware that SAP GRC does not scan for technical vulnerabilities. This results in problems such as outdated kernel patches, insecure transport, or misconfigured parameters that are not detected. These are just a few areas it misses. Vulnerabilities in custom code can also be exploited, and transport layers can become areas of risk, as well. Without automatic scanning and prioritization, your team may remain unaware of these weaknesses.

Too Narrow a Focus

GRC platforms have too narrow a focus. They primarily concentrate on identity and access management. What they do not concentrate on is determining who has access to specific resources and whether that access aligns with your policies. Once hackers penetrate your systems, they can move laterally, exploit vulnerabilities, or deploy malware—none of which is addressed by identity management tools.

Custom Code: The Silent Risk

And lastly, custom code is a silent risk. Most SAP environments rely heavily on custom ABAP code. However, custom code is often overlooked during standard security reviews. If you're not scanning this code regularly, you render yourself susceptible to significant issues such as SQL injection, hardcoded passwords, and insecure integrations. These are some of the hackers' favorite weaknesses; attackers love them because they're hard to detect and easy to exploit.

Your SAP Landscape Requires a Strategy

The ability to detect threats as they occur is crucial. Real-time monitoring gives you immediate visibility into suspicious activities, policy violations, and unauthorized changes. Continuously scanning your SAP environment for vulnerabilities and ranking them based on severity is paramount for prioritizing fixes. And when your SAP alerts are connected to your SIEM, you can respond to threats in context and act quickly and effectively.

Additionally, automated code scanning tools enable you to identify vulnerabilities before they are exploited. Embedding security checks into your development process (also known as DevSecOps) will help ensure that every new release is thoroughly vetted and secured. This will reduce attack surfaces and create a culture of security in your SAP lifecycle.

Conclusion

System governance, proper detection, and reliable vulnerability management, along with an integrated system that covers the entire SAP stack, are optimal protection. GRC tools have importance, but they do not provide complete protection. A strong SAP security posture requires:

• Real-time monitoring and threat detection
• Automated scanning for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations
• Integrated response and visibility across systems
• Custom code analysis and DevSecOps practices

When these pieces work together, you can be assured that you have proactive security, as opposed to reactive.

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