ERP Security for Pharmaceuticals
DownloadFor pharmaceutical companies, the impact of a successful cyber attack on their critical ERP, production and supply chain, or patient portals could be devastating.
Cyberattacks targeting the systems that support critical operations such as R&D, clinical trials, and manufacturing are growing in number and severity with the primary goal being theft of intellectual property of key research, formulas, and therapies. As a side effect, these attacks create business disruptions that potentially cause integrity or safety issues in products designed for human consumption. Under the growing threat of targeted cyber attacks, pharmaceutical companies are challenged to protect their critical systems and ensure the safety of their products in the face of regulatory oversight and the threat of compliance audits.
Key Risk Factors
Direct ERP Attacks on the Rise
Cyber attacks targeting pharmaceutical companies are on the rise. Successful attacks on ERP systems can be particularly devastating, with the potential to disrupt R&D, manufacturing supply chains, and clinical trials; interfere with product safety and delivery; and result in theft of company IP or patient data.
Digital Transformation Timelines
Investment in digitized R&D and supply chain projects is growing with the goal of better collaboration and agility. However, these digital transformation projects bring accelerated timelines where security is frequently an afterthought. The result is increased cyber risk across interconnected systems including remote trial data and patient portals.
Strict Audit Requirements
Pharmaceutical companies are subject to strict compliance regulations for drug development and the protection of patient and customer data. Failure to comply with laws and regulations can result in significant financial impacts including fines, revenue loss, and reputation damage.
Key Challenges
Limited Visibility for Security
There are multiple ERP application owners in pharmaceutical companies, and data lives within a complex, interconnected landscape. This lack of visibility, makes it harder to manage the attack surface and cyber risk for business-critical operations.
Secure Digital Transformation
Digitization projects streamline operations and increase efficiencies, but they can favor expediency over security. Building in security, particularly during custom code development, and enabling continuous monitoring of critical ERP systems with vital research and patient data, is paramount.
Security Controls for Compliance
Regulatory and GxP compliance generally requires a large number of time-consuming, manual, and repetitive tasks to collect data. Identifying unmonitored or vulnerable ERP assets and automating these processes greatly accelerates audit preparation and helps avoid violations.
Solution
Onapsis Provides a Better Approach to ERP Security
Fortunately, securing your complex ERP landscape doesn’t have to be complicated.
That’s where Onapsis comes in.
Onapsis has been on the frontlines securing the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies for over a decade. We are the foremost experts in business application security with the most prolific ERP threat research team. We’re proud to be an Oracle partner and the only application security platform in the SAP Endorsed Apps program.
With Onapsis, you get complete 360 degree security for your critical ERP applications, helping you:
- Automate security tasks for a faster, less resource intensive, process for compliance audits
- Manage risk with specific threat research, analysis, and monitoring so your team can effectively take action
- Integrate with existing security resources so familiar ticketing systems and SIEMs can bring ERP security into SOC playbooks
F250 Biopharma Company Case Study
F250 Biopharma Company Builds SAP Cybersecurity Program, Reduces Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) by 83%
Challenge
Dependent upon SAP for their supply chain, manufacturing, and other business-critical operations, the company understood that a “threat to SAP is a threat to the patients that rely on their products.” They needed to harden their applications against internal and external threats and better understand and manage their SAP attack surface.
Solution
Onapsis was able to automate vulnerability scans and provide actionable visibility to mitigate risk to their SAP systems. The organization also leveraged Onapsis continuous threat monitoring of their SAP systems as an early warning system for potential cyberattacks.
Learn more about how Onapsis helps pharmaceutical companies protect the systems and data supporting ERP, R&D, digital supply chains, clinical trials, and other business-critical operations at onapsis.com/pharma
Reference
1 IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022
2 Data Breaches Targeting Pharma Companies are Rampant, Drug and Discovery 2022
3 Tech Republic