For luxury conglomerates, digital transformation is a strategic move to protect the reputation of the brand across every maison, region, and deployment model. As organizations migrate business-critical operations to the cloud, a dangerous misconception emerges regarding security accountability. Moving to the cloud provides agility, but it does not outsource your security responsibility.
In our recent briefing, we explored the unique security challenges luxury brands face during complex cloud migrations. Watch the full breakdown in our Luxury Threat Briefing, available on demand.
What is the Shared Responsibility Model in RISE with SAP?
The shared responsibility model is a security framework where SAP manages the core infrastructure, while the customer retains complete responsibility for securing the business data and application layer. It is critical for luxury security teams because failing to secure your side of the model leaves ultra-high-net-worth client registries and financial data exposed.
When adopting RISE with SAP, SAP securely manages the network, cloud infrastructure, operating system, and database. However, the customer must actively own and secure:
- Business Data: Protecting sensitive financial records and intellectual property.
- Users and Authorizations: Monitoring access and preventing privilege escalation.
- Configurations and Custom Code: Ensuring custom logic does not introduce vulnerabilities into production.
Luxury conglomerates operate a “multi-maison” structure, managing numerous distinct brands under a single corporate umbrella. Securing this decentralized landscape requires complete visibility. Relying on fragmented tools creates blind spots that modern threat actors exploit to pivot across the corporate network.
How to Secure Your Cloud Transformation
To execute a secure migration and eliminate blind spots across your maisons, security teams must integrate continuous monitoring directly into their cloud strategy.
Prerequisites
- Administrative visibility across all on-premises, private cloud, and RISE environments.
- Implementation of an SAP Endorsed App for security monitoring.
Step-by-Step Actions
- Identify the Attack Surface: Map all SAP applications, modules, and components across every brand and region to establish a unified baseline.
- Secure Custom Code Development: Deploy an automated SAP application security testing software to scan custom transports before they are moved into the production RISE environment.
- Integrate SAP into the SOC: Bring SAP threat data directly into your existing Security Operations Center (SOC) and incident response workflows to break down organizational silos.
Verification
Execute a test transport containing known insecure code. Verify that the automated security tool blocks the transport from reaching production and successfully routes a real-time alert to your central SIEM dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the SAP shared responsibility model?
The SAP shared responsibility model is a security framework where SAP manages the core cloud infrastructure, while the customer retains complete responsibility for securing the business data, application layer, and custom configurations. It is critical for enterprise security teams because failing to secure the customer side leaves sensitive financial data and ultra-high-net-worth client registries exposed to cyberattacks.
Who secures custom code in SAP RISE?
The customer is strictly responsible for securing custom code and configurations in an SAP RISE deployment. SAP handles the underlying network and operating system, but luxury organizations must actively own the security of their custom logic to ensure vulnerabilities are not introduced into the production environment.
How to secure an SAP RISE migration?
Securing an SAP RISE migration requires enterprise security teams to implement independent, continuous monitoring directly into their cloud strategy to eliminate visibility blind spots. You can establish a secure cloud transformation by following this process:
- Prerequisites: You must have administrative visibility across all environments and implement an SAP Endorsed App for security monitoring.
- Step-by-Step Actions: Map all SAP applications to establish a unified baseline, deploy automated SAP application security testing to scan custom code, and integrate SAP threat data directly into your central Security Operations Center (SOC) workflows.
- Verification: Execute a test transport containing known insecure code. Verify that the automated security tool blocks the transport from reaching production and successfully routes a real-time alert to your central SIEM dashboard.
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