Schedule PFUD transaction on a regular basis
How to analyze roles and authorizations in the SAP system
With the Enhancement Package (EHP) 3 to SAP ERP 6.0, SAP has provided an extension of the eligibility tests in the FIN_GL_CI_1 Business Function, which allows the eligibility objects for profit centres to be tested in FI. You must first enable the FIN_GL_CI_1 Business Function in the Switch Framework (transaction SFW5). After that, you can activate the new functionality in Customising via this path: Finance (new) > Basic Financial Settings (new) > Permissions > Enable Profit Centre Permissions Check.
In the foreground, important SAP reports on the subject of role and authorization administration were presented. Since these and the entire SAP system are known to be based on ABAP coding, the analysis of the source code is just as important, especially when using in-house developments. These in-house developments often present serious security vulnerabilities because they have insufficient authorization checks in the coding. To search for explicit strings and to categorize the in-house developments accordingly, the report RS_ABAP_SOURCE_SCAN can be used. This allows existing programs in the backend to be explicitly checked for specific check patterns by the authorization administrator and any errors to be corrected by the relevant developers. Authorization-relevant check patterns for such a scan are, for example, "AUTHORITY-CHECK" or SQL statements such as SELECT, UPDATE or DELETE. The former checks whether authorization checks are present in the source code at all. The check for Open SQL patterns analyzes the code structure for direct SELECT, MODIFY or INSERT statements that must be avoided or protected on the authorization side. The best practice measure in this case is to use SAP BAPIs. The preventive best practice would be to involve developers and authorization administrators equally during the conceptual design of the custom development.
Use system recommendations to introduce security
A user reports that he or she is receiving a permission error even though you have granted him or her the required permissions. This could be due to a faulty buffering of the permission data. Although a user has been assigned a role with the correct permission data, this user is presented with a permission error due to missing permissions. This may be surprising at first glance, but it can almost always be fixed by a short analysis.
At www.sap-corner.de you will also find a lot of useful information on the subject of SAP authorizations.
Even more critical is the assignment of the comprehensive SAP® standard profile SAP_ALL, which contains almost all rights in the system. Therefore, it should be assigned to a so-called emergency user at most. The handling of the emergency user should also be specified in the authorization concept, which should be documented in writing. In any case, the activities of the emergency user should be logged and checked regularly. Therefore, it is essential in preparation for the annual audit to check the current, as well as the historical, assignments of SAP_ALL. It is therefore not sufficient to simply quickly remove the SAP_ALL profile from users in the run-up to the annual audit. It must also be proven that the SAP_ALL profile was not briefly assigned for a few days over the audit period. If SAP_ALL assignments did occur, ideally these have already been documented and checked. If this is not the case, it is essential to create documentation that cannot be changed, in which it is proven why the assignment was necessary and that the user has not carried out any critical actions beyond this (filing and review of logging).
However, if your Identity Management system is currently not available or the approval path is interrupted, you can still assign urgently needed authorizations with "Shortcut for SAP systems".
This approach therefore requires an exact and complete configuration for each transaction that is invoked.
To store all the information on the subject of SAP - and others - in a knowledge database, Scribble Papers is suitable.
You can see that more than one authorization object appears in this evaluation.