A serious vulnerability that could impact thousands of organizations can allow hackers to take complete control of SAP systems.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-6287 and dubbed RECON (Remotely Exploitable Code On NetWeaver), was discovered in May by researchers at Onapsis, a cybersecurity company that specializes in the protection of business-critical applications. The security hole has been classified as critical — it has a CVSS score of 10 — and it was patched by SAP on Monday with the release of the #2934135 Security Note.
Onapsis says more than 40,000 SAP customers could be affected by the RECON bug and the cybersecurity firm estimates that there are at least 2,500 vulnerable systems that can be targeted directly from the internet, including in North America (33%), Europe (29%) and the Asia-Pacific region (27%).
The vulnerability could impact every SAP application using the NetWeaver AS Java technology stack, specifically versions 7.30 through 7.50. The list includes S/4HANA, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Portal, HR Portal, Solution Manager (SolMan), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Process Integration (PI), Process Orchestration (PO), and NetWeaver Mobile Infrastructure (MI), Development Infrastructure (NWDI) and Composition Environment (CE).
A remote and unauthenticated attacker who has access to the targeted system can exploit the vulnerability to create a new SAP admin user, allowing them to bypass access and authorization controls and gain full control of the SAP system.
The hacker can read, modify or delete database records and files, enabling them to steal personal and financial information, alter financial records, change banking details, disrupt operations, execute operating system commands, and cover their tracks by deleting or modifying logs and other files.
Onapsis has pointed out that malicious actors could leverage the fact that the RECON flaw impacts SAP Process Integration, a module that facilitates business process integrations and communications, and SAP Solution Manager, which provides a central management interface for SAP and non-SAP systems. By targeting these systems, a hacker could be able to move around the targeted organization’s network and obtain valuable information from other applications.
“The way SAP applications are opened to the internet in the form of SAP Enterprise Portals, combined with integration technologies such as SAP SolMan or SAP Process Integration, create an environment in which the exploitation of a CVSS 10 vulnerability can ultimately lead to business data and PII being compromised,” Onapsis said in its report.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has also published an alert for CVE-2020-6287.
Related: Critical Vulnerabilities in SAP Solution Manager Expose Companies to Attacks
Related: SAP Alerts Customers of Vulnerabilities in Cloud Products
Related: Critical Vulnerability Patched in SAP Commerce
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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