Comprehensive Data Security for Peoplesoft ERP

These days, digital marketing has become an integral component of marketing. It is, however, a market for digitally selling one's products or services. To promote their products online, they use tools like search engines (SEO), social media sites, email, and mobile apps. Nevertheless, digital marketing firms aim to provide the ultimate customer with all the data about their product or service. It also helps to achieve market knowledge for producers. They should, therefore, meet customer needs. It enables them to receive input from their thoughts and comments. Now you may wonder what all the challenges of marketing are. To understand it better, this article will give you examples. If you are a marketer, you will appreciate the difficulties you face. We're going to address digital marketing challenges and solutions in this post.

In addition to this, we will also answer challenges that digital marketing will face in the future.

Challenges of Digital Marketing in India

  The crowd in the digital world

 Every other company uses marketing technologies. A new career line has been developed  Getting lost in the volume is the challenge. Every business concentrates on digital marketing. In the crowd, you can get lost.Hence, it's a struggle to make the brand stand in amount. The recruitment of consumers and clients is also very difficult.

Targeting the Audience

 Identifying their audience is the most critical aspect of marketing itself. Targeting the right clients is therefore key. But, it's hard to push the necessary traffic to the website.The goods manufactured need clients who are interested in the product. If it can't push the correct traffic, there is no point in a digital marketing establishment.

Ineffective Social Channel

 Today, the company invested a large amount of time on ads in digital marketing and social media. Marketers, however, do not easily use the revenue to promote the concept of the channel too well.

Security Risks

 In online marketing, people are still suspicious. This is because of the risk that it involves. It needs data from head to toe. This can be a hazard to one's confidentiality. The more data is exchanged by an individual, the more sensitive it becomes. Online hackers have made it through several bonds with trivial data. In the 21st century, security risks can also be used as marketing problems. Not only consumers but also producers are suspicious about increasing cybercrime. Using digital marketing to its potential may also be hazardous.

Solutions to Issues Digital Marketing Might Face in Future

 Here find solutions to Marketing Challenges in the 21st Century…

Product Survey

 There may be a similarity between two or more companies' goods. Therefore, perform a survey to consider the current customers' desires.

Website Traffic

 Website traffic is extremely important in digital marketing. Conduct an audit and check the various promotions, such as social media networks, online advertising services that are paid/unpaid. Check which of them has more traffic and then try to concentrate on that marketing aspect.

Targeting Audience

 It is necessary to target the right type of audience by analyzing their desires and online behavior. Therefore, the best digital marketing company in Bangalore, will assist you in researching the various specifications your buyer needs.

Conclusion

There have been, in the recent past, several instances of data breaches wherein human error caused company information to be compromised. Human error is the reason behind 52 percent of security breaches, according to a new survey. Anything from the inability of an end-user to obey policies and procedures to their lack of technical expertise and experience can compromise company information. On top of that, attacks targeting ‘human assets’ and user devices have gradually risen over the last six years, according to the new Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, while attacks targeting servers, terminals, and networks have decreased.

This is the ideal time for businesses around the world to make it a priority through a mix of training and technological solutions to strengthen their cybersecurity culture. The five approaches outlined below will help enterprises improve their cybersecurity posture.

Impart Training

Workers should undergo basic security training from the first day on the job. Throughout the year, they should then be scheduled for refresher trainings. These refresher courses should be offered to everyone inside the company, from interns to mid-level managers and senior executives. The concerns discussed during these training refreshers should be specific to the work role and position of each employee within the company. They can take the form of email reminders, information posters, in-person meetings, etc.

Employ External Resources

There are a variety of training services accessible to businesses looking to improve the security skills of their staff, from online courses to workshops and activities at local universities. Risk simulation games are also available. Another choice is to find a nearby professor or expert in computer science to come to your company to hold a staff workshop.

Test

There are many ways to assess whether your training programs for cybersecurity are successful. Planning a simulated assault on workers is one of the best ways to do this. There are commercial and open source solutions that give you the opportunity to immerse workers in simulated real-life phishing situations and see how they react. For businesses and targeted end-users, these types of simulations are real eye-openers and act as perfect springboards for security awareness campaigns.

Reward Workers for Security Best Practices

One of the ways to create a culture of security within an enterprise is to reward workers for keeping company information secure. In addition to sending the message that protection is a top priority for the company, if they feel they will be publicly praised for their efforts, workers will make further efforts to investigate issues resulting in a violation or compromise. During a company-wide meeting or in an internal newsletter, these announcements may be made. Electing security champions for each department or sub-team is another way to enlist the support of the employees. That way, you get more tools that help you encourage best practices in policies and procedures and protection.

Leverage Technology Solutions

To keep company information confidential, it is never a safe bet to rely solely on employees. With the techniques of cybercriminals increasingly getting sophisticated, it is important to minimize the opportunities for human error to take place by utilizing technological solutions. An identity and access management solution that enables businesses to automate core identity enforcement controls, quantify and track risks associated with both users and resources, and automate access control policies, among a number of other security features, is one of the basic tools to consider investing in.

Privacy is generally seen as a fundamental human right, but how private can it really be, with so much of our personal data in cyberspace now? Data is everywhere, and it continues to expand rapidly with increasing Internet use, an increase in cloud technology, and our rising dependency on IoT devices. Cybercriminals, who are especially interested in having access to personally identifiable information (PII) that they can easily monetize and use for fraudulent purposes, have not overlooked the importance of data. The dilemma we face is that, while our digitized world is largely made possible by data sharing, we want to preserve our fundamental right to privacy as individuals. This is where data security comes in. It has evolved to become a prominent dimension of the overall functioning of enterprises worldwide.

Data privacy laws set in place safeguards for how our information is used by corporations. However, data regulation has changed significantly over the past two decades to keep up with rapid technological advances and the increase in online activity.

Owing to the sheer volumes of PII and sensitive data with them, companies are more heavily regulated in some sectors, such as financial services and healthcare. This not only makes these industries a primary cybercrime target but the amount of organized and historical data that these organizations store also justifies investments in machine learning and big data technology, further complicating the data security challenges. In the past few years, the financial services industry has seen dramatic growth in advanced technology and, despite our need for privacy, it seems like we can’t get enough of digital solutions.

For several years, clients have trusted banks and healthcare organizations to maintain their most confidential personal and financial details. The difference now is that the routes to access that data have multiplied in a highly-connected and digitized environment, making it far more vulnerable to a hack. Not surprisingly, especially for these sectors, there are a variety of data protection regulations in effect. A case in point is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

In any industry, a data breach can have devastating effects, but many organizations have based their customer base on trust in larger legacy industries, such as banking. A publicly reported data breach could undermine that trust, not to mention significant financial penalties, with so many tech newcomers waiting to take their clients.

We should expect to see new privacy regulations being implemented as competition in these sectors continues to drive innovation and produce more data and as organizations plan their infrastructures for more connectivity.

Data Security Is Evolving

Data privacy laws have adapted to the ever-growing data volumes and, in much the same way, to protect the environments in which the data resides, data security has evolved. Data protection is a vital aspect of all laws on privacy.

The way we work changed radically in 2020, with the pandemic of COVID-19 spreading like wildfire. Work from home is now an integral part of our lives. This new reality requires organizations to have stable and efficient remote access to essential apps and resources for work. As part of that, Oracle PeopleSoft apps that are commonly used are having a relook. As they contain highly sensitive data, business-critical systems for controlling employee lifecycles, monitoring buying orders, or performing other functions come with inherent risk. It remains a major challenge for organizations to obtain such applications to ensure access is allowed for only the right people. Organizations using legacy identity and access management (IAM) systems such as PeopleSoft ERP have recently grappled with an increasing number of hacking and phishing problems.

With most of the workers now working from home, the ways in which PeopleSoft is accessed are evolving, and the ways in which it is secured must also be updated to meet the changing demands. Companies are trying to find out how best to fix this crucial issue, with budget restrictions and a limited number of IAM providers dealing with urgent remote access and enhanced security requirements.

New Realities Spur Unique Demands

A strategic step towards improving the user experience is to make transactions mobile-friendly in PeopleSoft applications. Online access to self-service modules such as benefits registration, time entry, approvals, and self-service for students is also encouraged by organizations so that users can complete tasks both on their own time and on their own devices. Despite the benefits of mobilizing and facilitating remote access, the safety implications of PeopleSoft remain crucial. Expanding access to confidential data outside the protected perimeter of the corporate network raises the likelihood of threats and additional breaches that will succeed in their goal. While hackers are increasingly targeting individual users and devices to their advantage using the human-error factor, the increase in user-centered threats is also contributing to the risk.

The Security Implications

Eighty-one percent of cyberattacks have included stolen credentials, a recent study revealed. It is important to consider a security platform that assists PeopleSoft customers in taking a consistent approach to security. This skill helps businesses mitigate the risk of unauthorized entry.

As companies expand access to apps outside their firewall, login credential hackers focus on ease of access and target users. Offering a single layer of authentication is grossly insufficient in today’s data security environment.

With most customers of PeopleSoft ERP recently reporting a hack, it has become clear that identity authentication and access control are significant challenges. To defend these systems from the various internal and external threats that seek to bypass them, organizations need to greatly strengthen their Identity and Access Management controls. With PeopleSoft, an efficient solution can easily incorporate existing multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions, thus enabling contextual compliance. MFA’s context-aware implementation balances PeopleSoft security with risk and provides an additional layer of authentication.

The implementation of multi-factor authentication for PeopleSoft is suggested. However, integrating security solutions for PeopleSoft and MFA is not easy. In the absence of integration and compliance tasks, deployment rules are overly restrictive and cause user pushback. To better balance the implementation of multi-factor authentication with some degree of access risk, integration is advised.

Without a doubt, enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs are a must for today’s enterprises because of their various advantages. But it is important to know the downsides of the software to ensure that to go for ERP is the best step for your company. The key ERP disadvantages that clients can face are as follows:

1: Mandatory Compliance Obligations And Data Security

According to available evidence, there has been a major upsurge in instances of data breaches globally in the recent past. Hackers were successful in intruding into corporate networks, causing losses in millions. There are also several laws that explicitly seek to protect the privacy of data. SOX, GDPR, CCPA, PCI-DSS are just a few of them. ERP data security, therefore, is very important.

In today’s digital world, data protection and data privacy are a must. There are several vulnerabilities in ERP systems that reveal company data, posing threats to initiatives for data protection. Luckily enough, with their comprehensive systems that provide granular visibility and control over the data access and use actions of users, there are data protection solutions on the market that can give you complete peace of mind.

2: The Cost

If you want to invest in a traditional ERP scheme, you might theoretically end up spending five figures on a single license. For many, that’s by far the biggest drawback of ERP applications. The software’s upfront costs alone, particularly for small to medium-sized companies, can be prohibitively high. SMBs can minimize the upfront costs by opting for a cloud service, which is typically charged monthly.

3: Costs Involving Implementation and Maintenance

The personnel costs and the time required for successful implementation must be taken into account by companies. You can need to hire additional staff from IT, ERP consultants, software training experts, etc. In addition to the license fee, vendors selling traditional systems typically levy a maintenance charge. Besides, to better support your ERP applications, you will need to invest in new hardware such as servers and compatible mobile devices. And again, in order to retain them, you would need to nominate individuals.

With a generally painless implementation, no hardware, and a limited need for upgrades or enhancements, the Cloud ERP platform again represents a successful alternative. Technology built on the cloud is designed to be undemanding. Otherwise classified as SaaS, it is (Software-as-a-Service). Implementing these systems requires logging into any compatible and internet-enabled device; maintenance and upgrades are typically carried out by the vendor.

4: The Customization Process

There are particular needs of different organizations. Customization is one of the best adaptive features of ERP apps, but it can get out of hand quickly and rapidly. Customization of your applications takes a lot of time, effort, expertise, and money. But too many businesses completely underestimate how many resources are needed and either do not complete their customizations or end up going way over budget.

5: Complexity

There are different features of ERP security systems, but that also means that the platform can be complicated and complex. Companies are not unaware of being swept up in all the excitement of an ERP solution, but they do not prepare adequately for its implementation. Many organizations can find themselves too large and complex with processes for their activities, resulting in low ROI. This is especially true if, because of the complexity of executing the program, you do not convince your team.

Conclusion

When business stakeholders come to you looking for answers, having visibility and context around ERP data access and usage gives you the actionable insight necessary to provide value.

As a leader of Enterprise Applications, customizing legacy ERP applications like PeopleSoft, SAP ECC, Oracle EBS, etc., to meet your business’ exact process specifications can leave you between a rock and a hard place. The more customized your ERP applications get, the more your business stakeholders love it, but the complexity around application support and maintenance also increases. That being said, accepting more complexity is just part of the job, because after all, your most important role (in the eyes of others) is providing timely and accurate resolution to inquiries or incidents from your business stakeholders.

You know the drill: members from various business units come to you requesting help for a particular incident or an anomaly they spotted. It’s up to your team to provide a resolution in a timely manner. And that’s where the trouble begins. Many incidents require hours, weeks, and even months to research and resolve. It’s hard to provide excellent customer service to the lines of business when your team is facing major obstacles to resolving incidents in a timely manner.  

What if I told you there’s a way to enable your team to spend less time researching an issue (or no time at all) and produce faster results while providing better value for the various business leaders and their teams?

Three Major Obstacles to Timely ERP Incident Resolution

You’re the last person who wants to hear or say, “well, that’s just [insert ERP app name here].” But that’s one way you can sum up the limitations and obstacles your team will immediately encounter.  

Here’s a simplified view of that process from the perspective of PeopleSoft. Somebody from a line of business will contact a member of your Sys Admin team and say, “Hey, this user’s account was updated (i.e., maybe they didn’t get their paycheck), or there was some sort of anomaly in the execution of a typical business transaction (i.e., vendor didn’t get paid, etc.). We don’t know what it is, and the functional user(s) say it wasn’t them. We’re not sure what happened. Can you guys look into this? That would be great.”  

This incident kicks off your process flow to find a resolution. Then come the obstacles:

Obstacle 1: Legacy ERP Logs Can’t Tell You About Data Access

Experience says that most people who use an ERP application like PeopleSoft don’t know who’s doing what (specifically), who’s accessing what information, or most importantly – why. You probably first need to work out if this is something that the user did themselves or a hacker was able to gain access to the system – and also work out if this is an inside job or an external attack.

And while the logs can point you in the right direction, the legacy ERP logs are not designed to provide detailed information on who accessed what or even, in most cases, viewed something sensitive. This leads to major obstacle number two…

Obstacle 2: ERP Logs are Disparate and Not Correlated

ERP logs were designed for troubleshooting, not granular activity logging, which contributes to organizations and business units not knowing what their employees are doing inside the applications. When it’s time to go under the application hood and examine the native logs, another metaphor comes to mind: looking for a needle in the haystack. Here’s an example of all the native logs you might find in your instance of PeopleSoft:

App Server

PIA (Web Server)

Database

Process Scheduler

Load Balancer

Identity Provider (SAML, LDAP, ADFS)

Host O/S Logs

Firewall

Your organization likely has more than one of these servers where these logs reside. You might have four application servers, eight web servers, and so on. Now you’re looking at finding a needle in multiple haystacks. And that data is not correlated, so there is little relative context that can enable your investigation.

Here’s a nerdy example using the App Server and Web Server logs. On the Web Server, you cannot identify the person who logged in because you don’t know the OPRID. All you have are an IP address and a timestamp. You need to go to the App Server and review the OPRID, timestamp, and IP address on login or log out and attempt to correlate that information with similar information on the Web Server.  

Obstacle 3: Log Data is Not Enriched with Any Context That Makes It Actionable

Once your team has collected data from the logs and assembled material from other sources, the final step is to interpret everything and make a best guess so an action item can be established. How actionable is having a collection of raw data such as IP addresses, user IDs, location of devices, completed transaction, etc., if you’re not able to place that data into a human context?  

Let’s take the example of “Jim” and the incident involving him not receiving a paycheck. The raw ERP data shows that Jim’s credentials accessed pages containing personal information and bank account information several times over a period of time. Jim, the human, denies that he made any changes to the data on those pages, so the paycheck should have been routed to his usual bank account. Maybe you change Jim’s username and password and cut him another check. Was Jim trying to defraud the company and get an extra check, or was Jim’s account compromised in some way? Could a hacker have accessed Jim’s payroll data, changed the account number, received the funds, then changed the number back – getting away without a trace? Absolutely! It happens every day. If you cut Jim a new check, you fix Jim’s immediate problem, but do you understand what’s happening in your system?  

Why Appsian360 Immediately Makes You a Hero to Your Organization

You’ve been waiting in suspense to know when IT becomes the hero – well, here it is. When the business comes to you looking for answers related to a specific incident, Appsian360 provides the quick, actionable insight necessary to provide the company with the understanding of what happened with their ERP data.  

How? Appsian360 logs granular user access to data, correlates existing ERP logs, enriches the data with contextual attributes (who, when, where, what device, etc.), and visualizes the ERP data’s access and usage on dashboards. Now your team can easily look at data access by IP addresses, user IDs, location of devices, pages accessed, etc., and very quickly understand the facts behind an incident.

Let’s go back to Jim’s situation. With just a handful of clicks in Appsian360, you confirm that “Jim’s credentials” did indeed access and edit his personal information. Additionally, you discover that “Jim” was logging in after-hours using a foreign IP address based in another country. With a few more clicks, it’s clear that the IP address is responsible for other compromised user accounts. You didn’t just discover Jim’s breach, you now have a clear picture and a direction to fix the actual security issue – one that was growing in urgency by the day!

Without context, you lack insight. Context around data access and usage creates actionable insights. Actionable insights support the company and provide value to key stakeholders.  

Understanding user activity and data usage are precisely what the business needs – and without Appsian360, ERP logs lack insight. You can buck that trend with Appsian360.

In managing a broad variety of core business processes, ERP software is used, including but not limited to, finance, manufacturing, HR, etc. For quite some time now, companies worldwide have been using ERP tools to their benefit.

Extended ERP focuses on external activities to facilitate the management of connections with customer, distributor, transporter, and other parties. For supply chain management, market intelligence, e-commerce, and customer relations, popular extended ERP modules are used by organizations.

Third-party software, often via vendor-supplied interfaces, can be used to extend ERP systems. Some of these are outlined here.

Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) provides sales teams and call centers with customer process resources to be more autonomous. As part of an expanded ERP kit, ERP and CRM can be provided as they require minimal integration.

Product Lifecycle Management

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software may include activities relating to design, regulation, manufacturing, delivery, and field service related to how a product changes over its lifetime. Depending on the industry, PLM software may cover more business processes or be restricted to design and engineering.

Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Management (SCM) software can provide tools to plan and manage any phase in the manufacturing and distribution process, including monitoring of outside companies’ handling of products.

In manufacturing and delivering goods and services, several channels and supply networks are involved. Until goods reach the consumer, they undergo a number of procedures, covering anything from operations management to delivery, manufacturing, storage, and warehousing.

Product Data Management

Product Data Management (PDM) systems capture and retain product information to ensure that during the life cycle of the product, information is delivered to customers. All file ownership, version control (check-in and check-out of files), revision management, and information status are managed by the PDM system. Intellectual property rights are protected by security and administrative skills through task management, project-based defense, and related access rights.

E-Procurement/E-Commerce

In order to enter new markets, more and more businesses seek an online presence. The seamless integration of ERP systems into e-commerce websites via an API is becoming a significant requirement.

Data Mining

A term that comes from informatics is data mining. It is about looking for new information from a vast amount of data. In several cases, data is stored so it can be retrieved later. It is also possible to use the same data later to gather other information that was not needed for first use. This offers new expertise, and it can be helpful.

Need For Integration

Depending on the industry and functionality specifications, the extended ERP modules will need varying degrees of integration. The acquisition of advanced technologies leads to lower business costs.

Rising Cybersecurity Threats

Wherever they may be installed, IT devices and systems are at risk from unauthorized intervention, theft, and sabotage. Highly inter-connected business units are at risk of greater exposure and greater threats to ERP security.

In a connected world, ERP security threats can arise from anywhere. Via the Internet, we integrate and connect more and more systems and devices. IT protection must also be implemented into all processes.

Conclusion

Robust and integrated defense systems will allow a company’s IT systems to withstand cyber-attacks and protect companies from system crashes, data loss, and unauthorized access. In this context, it is important to find a solution that benefits the business and does not stifle productivity.

In general, an advanced persistent threat (APT) refers to a prolonged and targeted cyber assault in which attackers gain access to a corporate network for an extended period and remain undetected. Because of their high-value data, APT attacks are typically aimed at organizations in sectors such as national security, manufacturing, and the financial industry. As they secretly take control of the data of your organization, these cybercriminals work hard to remain undetected. Let’s look at how you can detect APT if you have one and the steps to tackle it.

While your organization may not be of the type that attracts the attention of well-funded and well-organized hacker groups or rogue nation-states, you need to remember that instead of causing network harm, the intruder’s primary objective is to steal data. That means an APT can be launched by a malicious outsider or an insider. The last thing these hackers want is for you to discover their presence and kick them out.

Signs of an Advanced Persistent Threat

While it is difficult to identify one, in the case of an advanced persistent threat, you will begin to find subtle changes that indicate something happening out of the ordinary. In the ERP system, let’s take a look at some spooky behavior that may indicate the presence of an APT.

Payroll fraud is the most common consequence of an APT

The payroll department might notice anomalies: multiple direct deposits are wired to the same account; employees who have opted for paper paychecks instead of direct deposit reports are no longer getting their mail. Or, during a routine security audit, you can find the sudden development of high-privileged user accounts, but the logs display no entries that indicate who requested or approved them.

Context of access could be a sign of an APT

In your ERP system, there are other signs of irregular behavior, such as frequent after-hours account activity, excessive login mistakes and suspicious access, and obscure IP addresses from overseas locations. Regardless of the signs, the next step is to launch an investigation. The advanced persistent threat counts on your inactivity to stay concealed.

Stave-off APTs with a multi-layered security strategy

When abnormal behavior reveals itself, companies using legacy ERP systems are frequently left in the dark. The granular visibility required to identify and remove malicious actors in data access and use is lacking in such systems.

There are data protection and analytics applications that allow businesses to adopt a layered security strategy that includes complex controls for authentication and authorization, along with real-time monitoring that provides insight into when and by whom data is accessed. These solutions add these extra layers of security into your ERP system to help ensure the data is still safe even if it is haunted by an APT (e.g., valid login credentials stolen by a phishing attack).

The US Department of Homeland Security has, in the past, alerted companies about the increasing threat of attacks against enterprise resource planning systems. The alert came in the aftermath of a study exposing the widespread violations in Oracle and SAP systems. While government agencies and some other sectors are particularly vulnerable to security outbreaks, it is more common for smaller companies and producers to become victims of breaches.

As disturbing as this news is, it should not stop enterprises from looking for ERP solutions. Without introducing ERP to simplify workflows and act as a central hub of business data, organizations will fall behind in our fast-paced marketplace. The reality is that our data has never been 100% safe, and cyber-attack vulnerabilities sometimes stem more from weak protocols than from the systems themselves. The risk of getting hacked decreases significantly with each security precaution a company takes. In this section, we discuss the steps companies can take to ensure robust ERP data security.

Regular Upgrades And Updates

The news of rising ERP attacks proves the need to update and upgrade your apps periodically. There have been obsolete, unpatched cases of a significant number of hacked systems. Upgrades and patches are frequently postponed by organizations as long as possible because they do not want to delegate their money to the process. Most new updates, however, contain fixes and safety characteristics designed to overcome security challenges. There are constant new threats, and the program needs to keep on top of the changes. The longer you stick to your legacy structure, the more it will be vulnerable to attack.

Training For Employees And SoD

The greatest danger to the credibility of the data is sometimes not the program itself; it's the people who use it. Your business becomes a prime target for hackers when users do not hand over information properly. That's why, during ERP deployments, you should not only train users but maintain an ongoing training schedule. This encourages users to reacquaint themselves with security procedures so that they can report anomalies by opening compromised email attachments to avoid introducing problems.

Another way to ensure the data is handled properly by your users is to segregate duties. Segregation of Duties (SoD) requires the dispersion of tasks among many individuals. In this way, one person is not entirely responsible for the maintenance of sensitive data and the implementation of essential procedures. Logins can be tracked by managers, and misuse, if any, detected.

Database Maintenance

A goldmine for hackers is the ERP database. To ensure robust ERP data security, companies need to put in place different steps. One measure is encryption, which, by converting data into a code that is meaningless to hackers, serves as one of the most efficient ways of protecting information. Businesses should run checks to detect possible vulnerabilities in addition to encryption.

But hackers don't only target a database directly; they also use backdoor methods to access confidential company data. In order to provide optimum security, IT workers must stay vigilant on all fronts, secure firewalls, upgrade passwords, and enforce two-step verification methods. Since it is such a heavy burden to maintain security standards, organizations should employ the assistance of specialist experts to direct them through this phase to ensure that there is no opening for attack.

Conclusion

With 2020 nearly three months behind us and the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines picking up speed, organizations are looking hopefully to 2021 and beyond. Optimism aside, a hard truth about 2021 is that remote work and ERP access are here to stay. Organizations must put a mission-critical emphasis on ERP data privacy, security, and access governance policies. Here are some key strategies to consider as you strive to improve your ERP data privacy and compliance in 2021 and beyond.

ERP Data Privacy Starts with Knowing Your Data

The obvious first step to any kind of ERP data privacy is knowing exactly what data you have. Think of it this way: you can’t protect what you don’t know. This data inventory, if you will, should align with the basic data privacy guidelines set out by regulations like GDPR, CCPA, SOX, and a growing number of others. Companies should have an understanding of what sort of personal data is collected, how that data is accessed, where and how it is stored, what is it used for, if it is shared with another organization or group, and how long is it kept before being disposed of.

Apply Dynamic Access Governance Policies for ERP Data Access

Now that you’ve identified and categorized your data, it’s time to establish who has access to it, when they can access it, from where, on what device, and how often. The problem is that legacy ERP applications like SAP (ECC and S/4HANA), Oracle PeopleSoft, and Oracle EBS use static role-based access controls (RBAC) to govern access. These roles have reached their limitations in a dynamic workplace because static roles do not leverage contextual attributes.

To create a more dynamic and robust cybersecurity and data privacy program, you can enable dynamic access controls (often called ABAC) to support your RBAC controls by incorporating additional contexts, such as geolocation, time of day, and transaction type. Combining ABAC and RBAC, you can establish rules that grant access to ERP applications and transactions only if the person meets certain contextual criteria. When defining risk through the lens of the context of a user’s access, dynamically enforcing governance is a crucial data privacy objective and investment.

Leverage Dynamic Controls to Enforce Policies

Once dynamic governance policies are in place, organizations can enforce those policies by leveraging dynamic technology. Specifically, here’s how Appsian can help you gain control and visibility of data access and usage without sacrificing productivity.

Avoid Unnecessary Data Exposure with Dynamic Data Masking An essential requirement of data privacy is ensuring that users accessing ERP applications, either in an authorized or unauthorized manner, do not have needless access to valuable data through various pages, reports, or queries. Appsian can reduce the exposure of sensitive data with dynamic data masking for sensitive fields. You can also leverage click-to-view functionality to protect against unnecessary exposure while logging intentional access to sensitive information.

Add Stepped-Up Multi-Factor Authentication at the Transaction Level Adding multi-factor authentication at the transaction level, as well as at the perimeter, ensures that users are not only authorized to access and view the data but perform the actual transaction based on their current context of access. This should be applied to highly sensitive transactions like editing a direct deposit account number, accessing compensation data, or running a report containing employee PII.

Strengthen Data Loss Prevention Data exfiltration, whether malicious or accidental, typically originates from employees’ legitimate access to ERP applications and can be hard to prevent or detect with existing security capabilities. Using context-aware data loss prevention policies, Appsian can prevent users from executing transactions that download ERP data in high-risk scenarios, such as: after business hours, from untrusted locations, networks, or devices.

Enhance Visibility into ERP Data Access and Usage

Compliance mandates such as GDPR, CCPA, SOX, and others require organizations to maintain data access and usage details. Unfortunately, user behavior can be a mystery when relying on native ERP logging features to understand the “what, who, where, why, and how” around data access and usage. It’s a manual, time-consuming task. But not anymore.

Appsian360 provides granular, real-time visibility into user activity logging and analytics, delivering actionable insights to automate compliance audits. It allows organizations to continuously monitor data access and usage and proactively alerts security teams to anomalous activity, allowing them to quickly respond with full forensic information.

See for Yourself How Appsian Can Help Improve Your ERP Data Privacy & Compliance

Organizations around the world have enabled their workers to function remotely in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Employees are accessing data setups that are somewhat different from that of the office. Under such conditions, maintaining ERP data security for organizations has become a major challenge. The context of access becomes highly relevant in this case. 'Context' means the time of day, location, device type, URL, etc. When it comes to detecting unusual activity that might otherwise have gone unnoticed in the "always linked" world of today, contextual variables are the primary drivers. Moreover, as it is meant to be ubiquitous to navigate business systems.

The Expanded Scope of Access

While mobile ERP access means added versatility, with this flexibility comes a higher risk of exposure. It is necessary to note that the ever-changing context of access is where the risk of unintended data disclosure inevitably resides.

Several forms can be taken by the context of access. For instance, access from an unknown network to office applications, access from a foreign country while on a business trip, and the like. In a mobile world, the background of access changes every moment, creating a significant risk. It would be right to think that your highly privileged users do not want to view sensitive company data from areas where their session could be compromised.

Unfortunately, since ERP functions and permissions are static, traditional ERP systems are not designed to deal with the variable danger. This implies that if you are a high-privilege user in your workplace, you are still a high-privileged user outside the office everywhere!

The Threat of Data Leakage in Mobile Environments

Even the most well-meaning workers will accidentally leak data. For instance, mobile access requires the use of personal devices for work, which is unavoidable. Many mobile devices are shared and have automatic backup systems between members of the family. In a cloud backup, sensitive information accessed from a personal computer may be used without the employee ever understanding it. Now, the data resides in personal storage and is forever entirely beyond the company's control.

The Relevance of Contextual Access Controls

Many assume that network-centered data hazards are the most prominent, and that assertion is not wrong. The most huge, most headline-grabbing data breaches, where millions of records have been compromised, have typically been large-scale incidents. Organizations also implemented sophisticated firewalls and network access controls to keep themselves out of the press. But data threats are becoming increasingly 'user-centric,' phishing/spear-phishing being the most prevalent.

For users who work outside the office, phishing/spear-phishing has proven to be extremely successful: reviewing emails quickly during offsite meetings, working from home late at night or early morning, or any other situation in which a user's environment provides just enough distraction to fall for a phishing email.

Shouldn't organizations implement controls that dynamically enforce policies when risk is deemed high, given that mobile access increases risk multiples? After all, your internet browser alerts you when you visit a website that isn't secure. The inclusion of contextual controls helps businesses to align their business activities with their security policies.

Conclusion

ERP applications provide the most relevant information about enterprises’ financials, business reports, personally identifiable information (PII) of staff, suppliers, clients, associates, job applicants, and more. ERP systems can now be accessed from any device and any location with the introduction of corporate networking, enabling users to engage with the most important company data at any point in time.

The expansion of the spectrum of networking and access has resulted in the expansion of the network boundary that is now being extended to users and their mobile devices, establishing a new perimeter of user identity. The easiest option for malicious parties to gain access to confidential information is to compromise an end- user’s identity and ERP login credentials. Threat patterns indicate that attacks from social engineering, accompanied by insider data leakage and abuse of privilege, are at an all-time high – reaffirming that most ERP data attacks are likely to result from the manipulation of legitimate login credentials.

In addition, data protection challenges are recognized by organizations worldwide. Legal and regulatory standards have become highly stringent, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), etc., and require specific input into how corporations manage, use, and process PII. Under these regulations, organizations are expected to respond within a specified period of time to audit requests and report violations or face monetary penalties. Enterprises should also monitor and record granular data access information at all times, such as users in ERP applications accessing extremely sensitive data fields, where they access it at what frequency, and the like. By integrating additional regulatory criteria and the changing climate of threats, it is clear that identity and operation are the new common denominators for information security expertise.

Organizations should be prepared with deep insight into user behavior in view of the proliferation of access, the transition to user-centered risks, and strict regulatory criteria. User behavior monitoring and tracking within ERP applications may help organizations analyze the usage of ERP applications, strengthen the functionality of real-time auditing and monitoring, and provide actionable information to security teams for faster threat and incident response detection.

Let’s look into the challenges of legacy ERP logging.

Legacy ERP logging was not intended for monitoring user activities.

Legacy ERP logging features have been developed mainly for debugging and troubleshooting. Legacy ERP logs, created in an age before the proliferation of user-centered threats, lack the features required for today’s advanced security and enforcement requirements. For testing and development, system-focused, voluminous, and unstructured-out-of-the-box, ERP logging is all right but impractical for use in production environments. In their production environment, due to the output impact and the amount of “unactionable” data they produce, most organizations will turn off logging or restrict logging to the most basic functions such as tracking credential login and logout operations. As native logs are not intended to provide user experience information and any related contextual data, they restrict the ability of an organization to respond to user-centered threats. Although triggers may be introduced via custom development, these custom triggers see changes in data. However, they do not have any insight into data exposure (whether a data field has been accessed by a user). In addition, to these custom triggers, the maintenance cycles of software add additional work.

Inadequate capabilities for incident response.

Attacks have been increasingly targeted at obtaining login credentials of users in recent years. The key causes of breaches are brute force assaults, phishing, and other social engineering techniques, along with insider threats such as misuse of rights or accidental data leakage. Security teams often manually review network and database logs, and then assumption-based decisions are made. As a consequence, the detection of suspicious events becomes a time-consuming process in the event of a breach, delaying incident response, and remediation efforts.

Legacy ERP logs provide limited data for audit and compliance.

Strict guidelines on how organizations store, handle and use personal data have been established through data privacy regulations such as the SOX, GDPR, CCPA, and others. Since ERP systems with Personally Identifiable Information (PII) are abundant, they are a critical component of the compliance strategy of an organization. In terms of fines and remediation actions, failure to comply with data protection laws will cost organizations significantly. Most of these mandates are wide-ranging and have an effect on companies despite their geographical position (i.e., if, despite their location, US companies have EU citizens’ data, they must comply with the GDPR). Organizations must have good visibility into user behavior within their ERP applications in order to keep the compliance audit-ready. Who accesses what data, from where, when, and on what devices, for instance. These details are not supplied by the default logs from legacy ERP systems. Some data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR) allow data subjects at any point in time to request an audit. Details about who accesses their info, what they do with it, and even online identifiers such as IP addresses will be searched for by these subjects. Businesses would be unable to respond to such audit requests in the absence of user-centered transaction records, placing them at risk of non-compliance. Organizations must also be prepared to address many questions simultaneously – a lengthy, unsustainable procedure with legacy system logs.

Running a successful enterprise is about many different processes working in unison. You have to monitor inventory, take part in bookkeeping, ensure customers' and workers' satisfaction, and focus on manufacturing. Enterprise resource planning software, also known as ERP, incorporates all of these into a single centralized location, which provides access to those systems and the information they produce in real-time. If you are not using ERP software, you are missing out on several big benefits of this real-time information. Here are five benefits that you can begin to leverage by combining your business practices with ERP software.

1: Real-Time Data Streamlines Workflow

Are there areas of your business that you are not closely connected to? ERP software allows you access to data about all aspects of your business in real-time. This enables you to streamline the workflow at every stage of the process. From monitoring inventory to dealing with accounting or human resources issues, everything falls under the same umbrella. If you find a hang-up in growth or discover that your sales team is losing it, you can find inefficiencies, rectify them, and improve your overall performance.

2: Improved Order Tracking

Do you have the required information when you are called by a customer who wants to know where his order is? ERP software enables you to easily find an order so that you can give your customer information about its location. This, in turn, enables you to provide accurate predictions of delivery, meaning customers are never left wondering where their products are in the manufacturing and shipping phase.

3: Automated Profit Tracking

Estimating sales margins and profit ratios is difficult for a rising business. These reports are made readily available by the correct ERP system when synchronizing them to make it easier for you to determine metrics. With automated profit monitoring and reports, you can see places that need to be changed before they have the capacity to hurt your profit margins.

4: Prompt Customer Support

What happens when you tell a customer that you have an item in stock or that you can provide service within a set time span, only to find that you can't? Inaccuracy affects customer support and overall brand opinion. Real-time ERP data prevents certain forms of errors from being committed, and you can see what's available at the time of sale. This helps improve customer service and overall customer experience, which preserves your image in the eyes of your target audience.

5: Removal Of Redundancies

You can find that employees enter the same data several times as the company expands, which leads to loss of productivity and time management issues. When you have an ERP program, this dilemma is avoided. Both databases are connected, and employees can see if data that has already been registered is being entered. If a redundancy exists, the system will mark it so that you can erase it. This improves accuracy by fixing outdated data entries and eliminates time wasted.

Security breaches are common today, adversely affecting organizations and users around the world regularly. Knowing the underlying incidents that cause these violations not only makes it possible for us to understand how they occur but also offers useful insight to resolve this increasing threat.

According to a Verizon study on the causes of security breaches, 62% of data breaches resulted from hacking, and 81% of those breaches used either stolen, bad, or default passwords. Social threats accounted for 43% of threats, and in 51% of data breaches, some credential-stealing malware was involved, with 28% of the data breaches investigated involving human error.

Security Breaches: The Causes

A detailed review of these figures reveals that the weakest link in the chain is human error, even though dangers such as password attacks and social engineering are involved. Outlined here are some of the common causes of data breaches that could have serious repercussions for companies:

1: Poor Password Practices

Compromised passwords acquired by credential harvesting are one of the most common causes of data breaches. The simplest way to gain access to a device is to obtain user credentials. Therefore, attackers try to manipulate the path of least resistance.

A long-identified market trait, of which even vendors are guilty, has been the propensity to prioritize convenience over protection. Recently, studies have revealed that more than 50 percent of IoT device manufacturers are unable to resolve security concerns (for example, ERP data security) emerging from weak authentication strategies they have used in the past.

The reuse of passwords, a common symptom in businesses that enforce policies for password complexity, is another common risk. For some apps, they are more likely to reuse a single complex password because users are required to recall more complicated passwords. This puts the enterprise at risk of a credential stuffing attack.

Spraying passwords is another example of a vulnerability to ERP data security. In essence, brute-forcing authentication is used in this attack with a limited collection of widely used passwords.

2: Human Errors

Human error is responsible for more than one-fifth of all security breaches. Examples are workers who leave laptops or other electronic devices in insecure locations where they can be easily stolen and workers who accidentally send confidential information to unauthorized third parties.

One more example of a simple human error that contributes to a major security breach is when someone is misconfigured by an application or database that could accidentally reveal sensitive information online.

3: Technology And Procedural Errors

Security breaches can be caused by deficiencies, such as inadequate patch management, in the security procedures adopted. As the effort required to successfully breach the system is very limited, unpatched computers are the main targets for attackers. Technology is never fool-proof, and from time to time, it will malfunction, resulting in exposed data or a device that is compromised.

Defending The Organization From A Security Breach: Some Measures

If adequately applied and handled, the necessary hygiene protocols for protection (such as vital patch management) will avoid many breaches. Implementing security regression testing can help avoid technology failures that could eventually lead to a security breach as an integral part of every implementation process, and encrypting data on mobile devices can also help prevent a violation involving a computer that has been lost or stolen.

Without a doubt, enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs are a must for today's enterprises because of their various advantages. But it is important to know the downsides of the software to ensure that to go for ERP is the best step for your company. The key ERP disadvantages that clients can face are as follows:

1: Mandatory Compliance Obligations And Data Security

According to available evidence, there has been a major upsurge in instances of data breaches globally in the recent past. Hackers were successful in intruding into corporate networks, causing losses in millions. There are also several laws that explicitly seek to protect the privacy of data. SOX, GDPR, CCPA, PCI-DSS are just a few of them. ERP data security, therefore, is very important.

In today's digital world, data protection and data privacy are a must. There are several vulnerabilities in ERP systems that reveal company data, posing threats to initiatives for data protection. Luckily enough, with their comprehensive systems that provide granular visibility and control over the data access and use actions of users, there are data protection solutions on the market that can give you complete peace of mind.

2: The Cost

If you want to invest in a traditional ERP scheme, you might theoretically end up spending five figures on a single license. For many, that's by far the biggest drawback of ERP applications. The software's upfront costs alone, particularly for small to medium-sized companies, can be prohibitively high. SMBs can minimize the upfront costs by opting for a cloud service, which is typically charged monthly.

3: Costs Involving Implementation and Maintenance

The personnel costs and the time required for successful implementation must be taken into account by companies. You can need to hire additional staff from IT, ERP consultants, software training experts, etc. In addition to the license fee, vendors selling traditional systems typically levy a maintenance charge. Besides, to better support your ERP applications, you will need to invest in new hardware such as servers and compatible mobile devices. And again, in order to retain them, you would need to nominate individuals.

With a generally painless implementation, no hardware, and a limited need for upgrades or enhancements, the Cloud ERP platform again represents a successful alternative. Technology built on the cloud is designed to be undemanding. Otherwise classified as SaaS, it is (Software-as-a-Service). Implementing these systems requires logging into any compatible and internet-enabled device; maintenance and upgrades are typically carried out by the vendor.

4: The Customization Process

There are particular needs of different organizations. Customization is one of the best adaptive features of ERP apps, but it can get out of hand quickly and rapidly. Customization of your applications takes a lot of time, effort, expertise, and money. But too many businesses completely underestimate how many resources are needed and either do not complete their customizations or end up going way over budget.

5: Complexity

There are different features of ERP security systems, but that also means that the platform can be complicated and complex. Companies are not unaware of being swept up in all the excitement of an ERP solution, but they do not prepare adequately for its implementation. Many organizations can find themselves too large and complex with processes for their activities, resulting in low ROI. This is especially true if, because of the complexity of executing the program, you do not convince your team.

Conclusion

In recent years, client-side attacks have become considerably more common, gaining in prominence since 2015. As online activity increases due to the global pandemic, the most susceptible target, e-commerce, is becoming more lucrative than ever.

Understanding The Client-Side Problem

Numerous activities take place in the background while communicating with a web application. Generally, these can be classified into two groups, based on where they take place. The first is the client-side (i.e., activities on the device of the end-user), and the second is the server-side (i.e., actions executed on the webserver). In recent years, attackers have found it easier to carry out client-side attacks, as these are more difficult to track and control by organizations.

How does the client-side get compromised? There are different situations where this might happen, such as cross-site scripting, a compromised S3 bucket, or a compromised package, to name a few.

It opens up a variety of malicious possibilities for hackers once the client-side is compromised. For example, take Magecart, a notorious collective that concentrates primarily on online skimming of credit cards. The word is often widely used to refer to their attacks, encompassing several threats on the client-side, all with the same objective: to skim data either through a first-party JavaScript or through a third party. These attacks operate by inserting JavaScript into either first-party code or third-party service code that is used on legitimate websites. And since JavaScript operates on the client-side, any time a customer enters their data into a site, it allows the attacker to obtain confidential personal information directly from the client.

Personal Information Offers Significant Gains

In recent years, e-commerce websites have been a top priority target for these attacks, along with airlines and ticketing platforms. In order to enrich the user experience, these sites typically rely on different third-party services. Online retailers use 31 JavaScript resources per platform on average, according to recent research. In addition, e-commerce sites are highly form-dependent, typically requiring both a login and a checkout form. This makes them the perfect victim of formjacking attacks.

The Pandemic's Impact On Online Shopping

The pandemic has intensified the transition to a more digital world and caused shifts in online shopping patterns that are likely to have lasting effects. Electronics, gardening/do-it-yourself, pharmaceuticals, furniture/household goods, education, and categories of cosmetics/personal care are the biggest winners. In 2021, this trend is predicted to rise. And the risk of fraud is increasing exponentially, with many corporations forced to alter the way they perform their sales.

A Multi-Dimensional Challenge

A multi-platform card skimmer that has been discovered on some major e-commerce sites is a recent example of such fraud. By inserting a malicious duped checkout form that was accurately masquerading as the legitimate form, the skimmer successfully "took over" the checkout method. This shows the degree of complexity involved in these recent attacks, capable of exploiting even the largest e-commerce sites hosted by them.

The fact that hackers may abuse the client-side to access PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is as serious a data breach as actually stealing data from the server. This raises PCI, GDPR, CCPA non-compliance concerns.

A Difficult Threat For Security Teams

Owing to their multiple benefits, enterprise resource planning (ERP) services are a must for today's organizations. But to ensure that opting for ERP is the right step for your business, it is important to know the downsides of the app. The key ERP drawbacks customers may experience are as follows:

1: Data Security And Mandatory Compliance

There has been a significant upsurge in instances of data breaches globally in the recent past, according to available facts. Hackers have been active in breaking into corporate networks, causing significant losses. There are also some regulations that expressly aim to safeguard data privacy. Some of them are SOX, GDPR, CCPA, PCI-DSS. So, ERP data protection is really important.

Data security and data privacy are a must in today's digital world. In ERP systems, there are many vulnerabilities that expose company data, posing threats to data security initiatives. Luckily enough, there are data security solutions on the market that will give you full peace of mind with their robust frameworks that provide granular oversight and control over data access and usage behavior of users.

2: Cost

You could potentially end up spending a huge amount on a single license if you were to invest in a conventional ERP scheme. That's the biggest downside of ERP applications for many, by far. The software's upfront costs alone can be prohibitively high, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses. By choosing a cloud service, which is usually paid annually, SMBs will minimize the upfront costs.

3: Implementation and Maintenance

Companies need to take into account the staffing costs and the time needed for effective implementation. You may need to recruit additional IT workers, ERP consultants, specialists in software training, etc. In addition to the license fee, a maintenance fee is usually charged by vendors selling conventional systems. Besides, you'll need to invest in new hardware such as servers and compatible mobile devices to better support your ERP applications. And again, you will need to appoint people in order to maintain them.

The Cloud ERP platform again represents a promising alternative with a generally painless deployment, no hardware, and a minimal need for updates or improvements. Cloud-built technology is designed to be undemanding. It is known as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service). Implementing these systems involves logging into any compatible and internet-enabled device; the manufacturer usually carries out maintenance and updates.

4: The Process for Customization

One of the most significant features of ERP applications is customization, but it can easily and rapidly get out of hand. It takes a lot of experience, time, effort, and resources to customize your applications. But so many companies totally underestimate how many resources are needed, and either their customizations are not completed or end up going way over budget.

5: Complexities

ERP security solutions have numerous features, but it also means that the platform can be complicated and complex. In all the enthusiasm of an ERP solution, businesses are not unaware of being swept up, but they do not plan properly for its implementation. With processes for their operations, many companies may find themselves too big and complicated, resulting in low ROI. This is particularly true if you do not persuade your team due to the difficulty of executing the program.

Conclusion