In today’s dynamic digital landscape, organizations rely heavily on SAP solutions to streamline their business processes, keep the security and custom code requirements at the top of their priority list, and ensure proper code development and configuration over time.
SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer (CVA) is a powerful enterprise tool that enables businesses to proactively identify and address vulnerabilities in their custom code, enhancing the overall security posture of their SAP applications.
In this article, we’ll discuss the key features and capabilities of SAP CVA, how it helps organizations safeguard critical data, mitigate risks, and maintain the integrity of SAP environments, and where our team of expert SAP consultants can come in to help.
What is SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer (CVA)?
SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer, a part of the SAP ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC), is an intelligent tool designed to help organizations analyze, manage, and secure custom code developed in their SAP landscape.
Custom code refers to programming code written or modified to customize or extend SAP applications to meet specific organizational needs, but it can introduce security issues if not designed or secured properly.
By identifying and assessing potential security vulnerabilities across SAP applications, companies can proactively address security risks and perform static code analysis to protect custom code from common programming mistakes.
SAP CVA functionality allows organizations to review custom code for potential vulnerabilities, align business processes with best practices to ensure proper code security, and maintain the integrity of their most critical SAP systems.
With the SAP CVA tool, companies can identify critical SAP Security issues, such as:
- SQL implementation vulnerabilities
- Lack of security configuration settings
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities
- Sensitive data exposure
- Insecure user authentication and authorization
Understanding the Key Capabilities of SAP CVA
Here are a few key capabilities of scanning ABAP custom code with the SAP CVA tool:
- Leverage code exemptions and data flow analysis to understand and suppress false positives
- Conduct remote code inspections and security checks with a current, centralized system
- Access extensive code documentation to support ABAP developers and improve the entire development process for SAP customers
- Build integrations with the SAP Development Infrastructure (GUI) and Eclipse-based ADT
- Adjust priorities for security checks and focus on new findings associated with a common baseline
How to Build a Process with SAP CVA
While SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer is integral in conducting ABAP source code vulnerability analysis, it’s only a small part of a company’s overall data security strategy. Organizations should design and deploy an approach to SAP Security
Remember that SAP CVA is a tool to assist in code vulnerability analysis, but it’s only one part of an overall security strategy. Your organization should have a comprehensive approach to SAP security, including regular patching, secure configuration, and user access management.
1) Selection, Installation, and Configuration:
Activate SVA to identify the custom code or development objects you want to analyze for vulnerabilities, including custom programs, reports, and other objects developed within your SAP system.
Ensure the SAP CVA is configured correctly in your SAP environment and CVA components are installed as part of your SAP Solution Manager setup.
2) Run and Review Code Analysis:
Use SAP CVA to run a static code analysis on the selected codebase and scan the code for potential vulnerabilities and issues. The SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer will check for common security problems like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and more to ensure proper configuration and support core penetration testing activities across the landscape.
After the analysis is complete, users can review the results provided in a comprehensive report that lists all the potential vulnerabilities and issues found in the code.
3) Prioritize and Implement Fixes:
Prioritize the identified vulnerabilities based on their severity and potential impact and develop a plan to remediate them, typically involving code changes, security configurations, or other measures.
Make the necessary code changes and configurations to address the vulnerabilities and collaborate with developers and security experts to ensure the fixes are effective and reliable across all associated SAP products.
4) Re-Run Analysis and Reporting:
After implementing fixes, it’s a good practice to re-run the code analysis to confirm the vulnerabilities have been resolved. Keep detailed documentation of the vulnerabilities found, the fixes applied, and the re-analysis results to maintain compliance with critical regulations and conduct more effective audit processes.
5) Ongoing Monitoring and User Training:
Integrate code vulnerability analysis into your code development and change management processes to continuously monitor custom code for new vulnerabilities as you develop and update your SAP applications.
Ensure that your development team understands secure coding practices and the importance of code vulnerability analysis. Offer training resources and comprehensive document management features to enable better user adoption and help employees write more secure code from the start.
Top 5 Advantages of SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer for Users
Let’s take a closer look at a few of the main advantages of the SAP CVA tool for business users:
Enhanced Security:
SAP CVA helps users identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in their custom code, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other standard security issues. With enhanced data security, companies can reduce the risk of data breaches and cyberattacks, safeguarding sensitive business data and protecting customer information from potential threats.
Proactive Risk Mitigation:
By conducting static code analysis and code inspector checks, SAP CVA allows organizations to take a proactive approach to risk mitigation. It helps identify vulnerabilities early in the development process, reducing the cost, effort, and system downtime required to fix security issues in production.
Compliance and Audit Support:
The SAP CVA tool assists organizations in maintaining compliance with critical requirements and upholding industry standards by providing detailed reports on code vulnerabilities and remediation efforts. This way, companies can pass critical audits and demonstrate a commitment to security best practices.
Improved Code Quality:
Beyond security, the SAP CVA platform also helps improve the overall quality of custom code by identifying non-security-related coding issues and enforcing coding standards. This way, companies can establish reliable ABAP code and efficient software before delivery into the production environment.
Cost Savings:
By leveraging SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer to identify and address security vulnerabilities early in the software development lifecycle, companies can improve the efficiency of their ABAP source code. This way, companies can reduce the costs associated with security incidents, data breaches, and post-production fixes that would typically be much higher than the investment in code vulnerability analysis.
How Can We Help?
Whether you need help outlining a plan to activate CVA across your SAP landscape, additional support resolving vulnerabilities after a complex deployment or penetration test, or just an extra hand getting started on your journey with SAP, Surety Systems is here to help.
Our senior-level, US-based SAP consultant team has the knowledge, skills, and experience to handle all your most critical project needs and a proven track record of success in helping organizations across industries maximize their SAP investments.
Getting Started with Us
Interested in learning how SAP Code Vulnerability Analyzer simplifies security fixes for products based on SAP NetWeaver and enables better data security across your entire SAP landscape? Ready to get started on a project with our team of expert SAP consultants?
Contact us today for more information!
