SAP systems handle enormous volumes of sensitive data and business-critical transactions every day from payroll records to supplier payments and design blueprints. While cyberattacks from outside the organization often grab headlines, the more insidious danger frequently comes from within.
A single user with the wrong combination of privileges can manipulate records, exfiltrate data, or bypass controls without immediate detection. Such incidents may stem from malicious intent, negligence, or simple oversight, yet the damage can ripple across finances, reputation, and compliance.
The path to reducing this exposure starts by looking past the most obvious control points and uncovering the less visible patterns of access risk that quietly grow inside the system.
Understanding the Broader Insider Threat Landscape in SAP
Insider threats in SAP landscapes are as diverse as the users who interact with these systems. They can be employees, contractors, administrators, or third-party partners, anyone with valid access credentials.
Some act with intent, driven by financial gain, revenge, or competitive advantage. Others inadvertently create openings for exploitation through negligence, misjudgement, or insecure practices. The complexity lies in the fact that many insider-driven incidents do not resemble traditional breaches. Instead of a sudden attack, risk often builds gradually through unusual login patterns, privilege changes, or data movements that appear routine until viewed in context.
For example
- A user logging in from two distant locations within hours may indicate account compromise.
- A developer downloading large volumes of sensitive data outside normal working hours may be preparing for a departure.
- Dormant accounts left active after a project ends can be exploited without raising immediate alarms.
These scenarios are rarely detected by perimeter-focused security tools because the activity originates from authorized credentials. Recognizing insider threats as an evolving, multi-faceted challenge is the first step in building stronger defenses.
Beyond SoD Conflicts – Recognizing the Wider Risk Spectrum
Segregation of Duties (SoD) controls are a foundation of SAP security. They work by preventing a single individual from performing conflicting tasks within a process, such as creating a vendor and authorizing payment to that same vendor. This reduces the potential for fraud or error by ensuring no single person controls all critical steps.
However, SoD conflict management alone does not cover the entire risk surface. Not all insider threats stem from conflicting roles. Risks can arise from:
- Excessive Privileges: Users holding access rights far beyond their job requirements.
- Dormant or Orphaned Accounts: Credentials that remain active without an active business need.
- Privilege Escalation: Gaining higher-level access over time through role changes or unchecked approvals.
- Data Access Beyond Necessity: Ability to view or extract sensitive information unrelated to assigned tasks.
The Overlooked Risks in Access Governance Models
Traditional access governance models tend to focus on periodic certification cycles, static role definitions, and compliance checklists. While these processes remain valuable, they often lack the agility and context needed to detect emerging risks.
Several gaps persist in these conventional approaches:
- Static Perspective on Access: Reviews focus on current role assignments without examining historical changes or patterns of privilege accumulation.
- Limited Behavioral Insight: Standard governance processes rarely connect access rights to actual transaction activity, leaving anomalous usage undetected.
- Siloed View Across Systems: Access is reviewed within individual applications without cross-system correlation, missing conflicts that span multiple platforms.
- Delay in Identifying Issues: Risks may remain until the next review cycle, allowing months for potential misuse.
These blind spots mean that even organizations with well-documented governance frameworks may leave exploitable pathways open. In SAP, where processes and data flow across interconnected modules, this lack of holistic visibility can turn minor oversights into significant vulnerabilities.
UAR: Elevating SAP Access Control Beyond Compliance
Diligent Global’s User Access Review (UAR) process brings a more dynamic and context-aware approach to access governance. Instead of simply verifying that a user’s assigned roles match their job function, UAR examines the reality of how those roles are used, how access has changed over time, and whether any rights have become unnecessary or risky.
When paired with User Access Shield (UAS), UAR gains additional depth. UAS automates the detection of SoD conflicts and provides real-time compliance reporting, ensuring that high-risk access is flagged instantly rather than waiting for the next review cycle. Together, they enable a governance approach that is both preventative and corrective.
Key elements of this integrated approach include:
- Usage-Based Risk Prioritization: Aligning review focus with indicators such as transaction history, data sensitivity, and SoD risk level.
- Timely Remediation: Identifying and removing access no longer needed for active responsibilities.
- Cross-Process Visibility: Mapping access across multiple SAP modules to detect hidden intersections that create risk.
- Alignment with Business Functions: Ensuring access privileges reflect actual operational needs, reducing both overexposure and process friction.
Combining UAR’s structured, periodic oversight with UAS’s real-time detection capabilities, organizations gain continuous assurance that access remains tightly aligned to legitimate business activity while rapidly addressing emerging risks.
How UAR Strengthens Insider Threat Defense in SAP
When embedded into a broader security strategy, UAR closes many of the gaps that SoD management and traditional governance leave open. It strengthens insider threat defence in several ways:
- Detecting Privilege Creep: Over time, employees may accumulate additional rights through role changes, project assignments, or temporary approvals. UAR identifies and removes these excess privileges before they can be misused.
- Identifying Dormant Accounts: Regularly reviewing user activity surfaces accounts that have not been used for extended periods. Deactivating these accounts reduces the risk of exploitation.
- Pinpointing High-Risk Access Combinations: Even without direct SoD conflicts, certain privilege sets can present risk. UAR highlights these combinations for closer examination and potential adjustment.
- Connecting Access to Actual Usage: By comparing assigned privileges with transaction history, reviewers can see where access rights are granted but never used which is a strong candidate for removal.
- Enabling Timely Action: With structured review cycles and clear workflows, UAR facilitates quick remediation of identified risks, reducing the window of opportunity for insider activity.
In combination, these capabilities create a more resilient SAP landscape; one where access aligns closely with real business needs and anomalies are addressed before they escalate into incidents.
Conclusion: Rethinking SAP Insider Threat Defence
Insider threats present one of the most complex challenges in securing SAP systems. They emerge from legitimate credentials, evolve quietly over time, and often exploit gaps that traditional controls overlook. While SoD conflict management remains an essential safeguard, it represents only one layer of defence.
A robust User Access Review program expands protection by continuously aligning privileges to actual business requirements, detecting hidden risks, and enabling swift remediation. By integrating UAR into core governance practices, organizations create a living, adaptive control environment that keeps pace with evolving user behavior and operational change. The result is not only stronger compliance, but a measurable reduction in the pathways that insiders can use to compromise the integrity, confidentiality, or availability of critical SAP assets.
