If you set this to 1 then only people with the right privilege can log on to the system. The parameter is immediately effective. All non-privileged users will get this error when they try to log on to the system:
After the system maintenance you can set the parameter back to normal and everybody can log on again. User history is not touched.
Be aware this is a dynamically switchable parameter. If you set the value to 1 and need to restart the system during your maintenance the value after restart is back to 0, which means everybody can log on again.
How to assign the privilege to log on to basis administrators?
First you need to create or extend the user security policy for basis admins using transaction SECPOL. Add the policy attribute SERVER_LOGON_PRIVILEGE and set it to value 1.
Now you can add this security policy to all basis team members in SU01:
All persons with security policy ADMIN are now still allowed to log on during the maintenance when parameter login/server_logon_restriction is set to 1 in RZ11.
Other use of security policies
Security policies can also be used to enhance security of specific user groups (like basis team). See this blog for more on this feature.
This blog will explain how to get text on the SAP logon screen before users logon and on the screen after users logon.
If you want to load a picture after the logon screen, please read this blog.
Questions that will be answered are:
How to add a text to the logon screen?
How to include icons?
How to put a text after the logon screen in stead of a picture?
How to put a clickable URL in the text after the logon screen?
Setting text before logon
The text to be shown before logon is maintained via transaction SE61. Select General text and for the name select ZLOGIN_SCREEN_INFO.
Now press change:
Enter the text you want to show to the users.
If you want to show SAP icons in the text start transaction SE38 and run program RSTXICON. Run it as ABAP list. Look for the icon you want and lookup the code. Please it between 2 @ symbols.
After the logon screen you can either add a picture or a web url. But no text or text with hyperlink. To achieve this we will do a small development trick. We put the text on a web dynpro page and add the web dynpro page as URL for the start screen.
First develop the web dynpro in SE80:
We will call the web dynpro ZSTARTPAGE. In our example there is a text (caption) and a LinkToUrl. The LinkToUrl has a text and a hyperlink and will show as a clickable element to the user. Save and generate the web dynpro. Test the web dynpro and note down the URL of the web dynpro.
Start transaction SM30_SSM_CUST to maintain the customizing for logon screen and other items. In the parameter SESS_URL fill out the web dynpro URL. If the parameter SESS_URL does not yet exist, just create it.
This blog will explain how to setup SAP batch job interception.
Questions that will be answered in this blog are:
How to activate SAP batch job interception?
How does an intercepted job look like?
Activating SAP batch job interception
Before you can begin the setup of the batch job interception you must run program INITXBP2 in SE38:
Next you have to start transaction CRIT and create the profiles.
First create the default SAP profile by clicking on the SAP logo. Activate it. Next step is to create the profile in which you want to do the interception. In the screen above click on the create profile button. Now enter a criteria. For simplicity we have called it interception. In our case we intercept all except a list of authorized users. In the user list we include the basis users and the background users (in this example WF-BATCH). Save the data.
Next step is to activate this profile:
Working of interception
When a batch job is planned the interception checks if the job should be intercepted or not. As a test logon as end user and launch a job. In our case the user ENDUSER tries to launch a job from SLG2 transaction to delete application logs. This jobs is intercepted and shows like this in SM37:
The job does not start immediately, but shows in intercepted state. If user with release rights now goes to SM37 for this job, he can release the intercepted job.
This blog focuses on SAP mail sending tips and tricks.
Questions that will be answered are:
How can I add a disclosure to the mails I send form non-productive systems?
How do I restrict access to transaction SOST?
Which batch job to plan for sending mails?
How can I send encrypted or signed mails?
Is there a display only version of SCOT available?
How to send hyperlink in mail using ABAP?
Adding disclosure from to mails from development and test systems
If you want to send mails from development and test systems, but don’t want any risk that it looks like a productive mail, you can add a disclosure to the mail.
In SOST mail settings go to the disclosure function:
Or you can go directly there using the SODIS transaction.
In SODIS you key in the disclosure text:
If you want you can test for any mail address if the disclosure will be shown or not by using the Routing Test function:
When sending mails from the SAP system the receiver now gets the disclosure. The real mail is pushed as text in the attachment of the mail (see OSS note 2842085 – Email body becoming to attachment in receiver side). You need to open the attachment to see the body of the text. Hyperlinks in the body will still work.
Restricting access to SOST transaction: give SOSG access
As admin you might want to restrict access to SOST transaction. This transaction is also often used by functional consultants to see if their mail is sent or not. When having access to SOST all functions like deletion and stopping of mails is also granted. What you can do is fully restrict access to SOST and grant the functional consultants access to transaction SOSG to display the mail status. It looks same as SOST, but has additional authorization checks. See also OSS note 2351372 – User access to transactions SOST, SOSV, SOSG and SOSB.
SAP mail sending can also use mail receipts. This might be wanted, but most of the times it is not wanted. More about read receipts is explained in OSS note 2161462 – How does Read Receipt work in SAPConnect?
This blog will give technical tips & tricks on embedded search. Embedded search can run on both HANA directly or on separate TREX server. It is assumed you know how to set up search in ESH_COCKPIT and know how the end user transaction ESH_SEARCH work.
Questions that will be answered in this blog are:
How do I set HANA default connection as embedded search location?
What to do after a system copy with embedded search?
How to reset the complete embedded search to initial state?
How to reset the embedded search buffer?
How to recreate the embedded search joins?
How to influence the package size of the search extraction?
How to check backend part of search?
How to deal with full text search issues?
How to deal with authority index issues?
How to deal with high load issues on TREX?
Activating search in S4HANA
If you are running S4HANA, you can use an STC01 task list to fully setup the search function. Read this blog on technical activation and this blog for FIORI search for full instructions. The remainder of the blog below can be used in case of issues.
Setting the search connection to use HANA default database connection
If you are running HANA database for ECC you can use the HANA default primary database connection for search setup. This is easier in maintenance: no extra TREX needed, no extra secondary DB connection. Search will consume extra memory and CPU off course on the HANA database.
To set this up run program ESH_ADM_SET_TREX_DESTINATION and select the Use HANA Primary DB connection option.
When things gone really beyond repair, you can log on to client 000 and start transaction STC01 and run task list SAP_ESH_RESET.
Important: write down (or make screen shots) on the connectors and settings that were active before running this task list. It will really wipe out all connectors and settings.
With program ESH_SET_INDEXING_PACKAGESIZE you can set the package size for indexing per object. You can lower the size for large objects to avoid memory issues while indexing. Issues can be dumps on SYSTEM_NO_ROLL / LOAD_NO_ROLL / TSV_TNEW_PAGE_ALLOC_FAILED / SYSTEM_NO_SHM_MEMORY.
To check if a search issue is related to application coding or is related to search setup, you can run program ESH_TEST_SEARCH (with same transaction code ESH_TEST_SEARCH). This program gives you options to test the search independent of any programming of search front end.
If you are having issues with full text search, please check OSS note 2280372 – How to check Full Text search issues. This note is focusing on full text search issues in relation to solution manager CHARM, but the methods described can be used as well for analyzing other full text search issues.
While indexing you might get authorization indexing issues. First step is to repeat with sufficient rights attached to your user ID. Then run program ESH_ADM_RECALC_AUTHS to force the recalculation of the authorizations.
In newer versions this tool is available. Otherwise apply OSS note 2690982 – TrexViaDbsl Analysis Tool in ABAP. Then in SA38 you can launch program RHANA_TREXVIADBSL_ANALYZER for the analysis tool:
This blog will explain the use of security policies in user maintenance.
Questions that will be answered are:
Why to use security policies?
How to setup security policies?
How to assign a security policy to a user?
Why to use security policies?
Security policies can be used to set more strict password rules on critical user ID’s like the system administrators, user administrators and background users. This is one of the measures to avoid password attacks as explained in the password hash hacking blogs.
How to setup security policies?
Security policies can be setup in customizing under the following node (or by using transaction SECPOL):
On the next screen create the needed security polices as definition (identifier and description):
Select one of the policies, to set the detailed attributes per policy:
In this example the policy for ADMIN is set more strict than the system settings. Setting it less strict than the password rules set in the system profile is not allowed.
Assign security policy to user
In SU01 on the tab Logon Data you can now assigned the appropriate Security Policy for the user:
There is a second use case for security policies: in the new netweaver releases you can set parameter to lock out users for maintenance rather than locking them in SU01 or SU10. For more information read this blog.
This blog series will explain the process of hacking SAP password hashes: also know as SAP password hacking. The process of hacking will be explained and appropriate countermeasures will be explained.
In this third blog we will continue with more complex attacks on the SAP password hashes and will also explain more preventive measures. Now we focus on the SAP PWDSALTEDHASH hash.
For the first blog on attacking the SAP BCODE hash click here.
For the second blog on attacking the SAP PASSCODE has click here.
For follow up blog on improving attack speed by applying rule-based attack, click here. And the blog on optimizing the attack. And the blog on extended word lists.
Questions that will be answered in this blog are:
How to get the PWDSALTEDHASH codes?
How does the dictionary attack work?
How does the dictionary combination attack work?
How does the dictionary with mask attack work?
What more can I do to prevent a password attack?
Getting the PWDSALTEDHASH codes
The testusers 1 to 5 have been given a new password and the security admin has done its job. This is what you see in USR02:
Double clicking on a line and scrolling down will give you the PWDSALTEDHASH field content:
Getting many is too much work. For this you can use code of the program ZFETCH_PWDSALTEDHASH below:
*&--------------------------------------------------------------------**& Report ZFETCH_PWDSALTEDHASH*&--------------------------------------------------------------------*REPORT ZFETCH_PWDSALTEDHASH.DATA: LV_USR02 TYPE USR02.DATA: LV_STRING TYPE STRING.SELECT * FROM USR02 INTO LV_USR02 WHERE PWDSALTEDHASH NE SPACE.CONCATENATE LV_USR02-BNAME '
The output for our testusers is now:
You need to save the part from {x-issha etc in a new file. The user ID in front is not needed. It is just needed in case you decrypt a password from a hash to go find the user ID.
The dictionary attack
We still assume that there is a very strict policy on strong password:
Minimum length 10
Minimum 1 upper, lower, digit and special
Since the admin has cleaned up the BCODE we have no idea on the first 8 characters now.
The trick we will use is the dictionary attack. We assume some of the users will use a password with the following rule:
Take a word
Capitalize first letter, rest is small
Add a digit
Add a special character
As input file for this attack we take all word from the Webster Dictionary: webster dictionary file.
We now go back to our Hashcat directory on C:\HC and give following command:
Command explanation: attack mode 6 for dictionary attack and 10300 for SAP PWDALSTEDHASH format.
And now hashcat is showing is parallelization power:
To test all the combinations on the 5 users only 30 minutes are needed, with almost 200.000 tries per second.
2 passwords were found: TESTUSER1 with password Theobald1! and TESTUSER5 with password Tetrazotization5{.
Especially the last one is striking: this is normally not considered a simple password: Tetrazotization5{. But because it appears in a dictionary it is relative simple to retrieve.
Combination attack with dictionary
To really show the speed, we will now perform the combination attack explained in the previous blog again. We will use the dictionary in combination with the popular extension file. Command to give:
It runs for 4 hours with about 200.000 guesses per second:
And it finally finds the last password: TESTUSER4 with Organoid1@#
Dictionaries
The example above is just one dictionary. Also think about dictionaries with names of persons, football clubs, cities and countries, etc. Largest dictionary so far is called the Wikipedia dictionary. It is about 250 MB large and contains all the unique words used on Wikipedia.
Preventive measures
Preventive measure 1: user education
Educate your users not to take a dictionary word directly and only add a digit letter.
Especially power users, like basis and user administrators, should really receive this education. Don’t assume they know. 90% of them does not, or even hands out passwords like Welcome2018!
Preventive measure 2: extra strong passwords for background and power users
You can set extra strong password requirements for background users and power users (basis and user administrators). This can be done by setting up specific security policies. This is explained in this blog.
Preventive measure 3: stronger hashes
By creating stronger hashes, the attackers need more time. It will not stop them, but slow them down. Read more on setting stronger hashes in this dedicated blog.
Next blog
The next blog will focus on rule based attack mode, which is one of the most effective methods.
This blog series will explain the process of hacking SAP password hashes: also know as SAP password hacking. The process of hacking will be explained and appropriate countermeasures will be explained.
In this second blog we will continue with more complex attacks on the SAP password hashes and will also explain more preventive measures. Now we focus on the SAP PASSCODE hash.
For the first blog on attacking the SAP BCODE hash click here.
Questions that will be answered in this blog are:
How to attack the PASSCODE from the BCODE?
How does the hybrid mask attack mode work?
How does the combination attack mode work?
What more can I do to prevent a password attack?For follow up blog on hacking SAP PWDSALTEDHASH, click here.
For follow up blog on improving attack speed by applying rule-based attack, click here. And the blog on optimizing the attack. And the blog on extended word lists.
How to attack the PASSCODE from the BCODE?
In the previous blog we have seen how easy it is to get the passwords from the BCODE. The BCODE is capturing the first 8 characters of the password in capital mode. The other characters of the password are not stored in the BCODE, but in the full PASSCODE. If the password is length 8 or below, you can already logon with the found BCODE password.
Now lets assume company password policy is:
Minimum password length is 10
Minimum 1 digit, 1 letter upper case, 1 letter lower case, 1 special
Pretty safe you might think.
We will use the previous 5 guessed test users. Their passwords from BCODE were: PASSWORD, LETMEIN, WELCOME, ILOVEYOU, STARWARS. We don’t know exactly which letters in the passwords are uppercase and which ones are lowercase. But we can make educated guess here, which we store in notepad file:
As you can see these are logical variations. Most people use password as they type: First letter in upper case, rest in lower case.
Getting the PASSCODE from USR02 table
We use one of the many methods to get the PASSCODE hash strings from the USR02 table:
And we put this into notepad file with user name and $ for separator:
Hybrid mask attack
What we will do is use a so called hybrid mask attack. This attack uses certain patterns.
The first pattern we will use is use the file with the BCODE guesses and at the end at a digit and special character.
To start the hacking process go to the CMD command prompt and proceed to the hashcat directory. Then key in this command:
Explanation of the command: 7800 means the hashes are SAP PASSCODE. Output goes to _found file. Input is the TestuserPassCodeHashes file. The text fie with the guesses is then combined with ?d?s. This means take every entry from the file and add first a digit, then a special. This will then try for example Password1!, Password2!, ….Password1@, Password2@, etc.
Result (after 1 min or so):
Password found: Password1! for testuser1. The output is in the output file. And the found hash is removed from the input file.
Hybrid mask patterns
Some patterns that can be used:
?l = letter, small caps
?d = digit
?s = special
?a = all possible input characters
If we continue with our example: we now will not scan for digit special combination but for any 2 or more characters. To do so: replace in the previous command the ?d?s with ?a?a.
After that we can run with ?a?a?a to find any combination with 3 characters at the end. Runtime: only 4 minutes:
Only when we add ?a?a?a?a for 4 characters runtime starts to increase to 6 hours:
After these runs we have found: Welcome123! for testuser3, IloveYou@9 for testuser4 and Starwars99*& for testuser5.
Combination attack mode
The above method is fast and almost always guaranteed to work. But is will only work for short extensions. There is even a faster way, but this method does not have full guarantee.
What we will do is construct a file with popular password extensions after the main word:
real file is much, much longer…
This file we will combine with the file of the already found words from the BCODE part. The combination of two files is called combination attack.
To start the hacking process go to the CMD command prompt and go to the hashcat directory. Then key in this command:
The attack mode 1 means combination attack to combine the two files.
After running this mode the Testuser2 password pops up: Letmein2018).
And yes: years in passwords are pretty popular.
End result
End result after all the different attacks:
And it really didn’t take long time. One overnight session is sufficient.
The real live sequence of cracking would be to start with the popular extensions to remove the quick wins. Then time can be spent on the hybrid mask attack: this attack goes faster when there is less input.
Preventive measures
Preventive measure 1: forbid simple password parts
By filling table USR40 you can forbid simple password parts to be used. Think about filling this table with words like:
Preventive measure 2: forbid display access to password tables
Forbid access to password tables. The hashes are stored in tables protected by the SPWD object. Don’t grant read access with S_TABU_DIS authorization object to this table group. Check via SUIM who currently has access and restrict it to only people you think really need it.
More information on the access protection can be found in OSS note 1484692.
Next blog
The next blog will explain on hacking PWDSALTEDHASH.
This blog series will explain the process of hacking SAP password hashes: also know as SAP password hacking. The process of hacking will be explained and appropriate countermeasures will be explained.
Questions that will be answered are:
Where are SAP password hashes stored?
Which software do I need to install for hacking the password hash?
How does the brute force method work?
How does the simple 10k most used password list attack work?
For follow up blog on hacking SAP PASSCODE, click here.
For follow up blog on hacking SAP PWDSALTEDHASH, click here.
For follow up blogs:
Improving attack speed by applying rule-based attack, click here.
SAP BCODE (oldest one and very weak): not to be used any more
SAP PASSCODE (less old, stronger than BCODE, but still weak): not to be used any more
SAP PWDSALTEDHASH (newest, strongest)
New SAP installations only use the newest method by default. Older system still might have stored older versions.
From user password to hash
When a users password is set initially or is changed is it hashed and stored in 2 tables:
USR02, which contains the current password
USRPWDHISTORY, which contains the history of the passwords
Older systems or wrongly configured systems store all the 3 password types mentioned above.
To start the password attack you need to get the user ID’s and hashes from the USR02 table.
Methods for getting this data (and many more):
SE11/SE16N table display
Write simple ABAP program
Database access on low level (HANA, Oracle, etc)
…. more creative methods….
For this weeks example we will use a couple of test users. The first 5 users are given simple passwords. The 6th user is given a fully random password.
The attack: from hash back to password
When you have the hashes all of the rest is now outside of the SAP system.
First step is to download a password cracking tool. A very good one is Hashcat.
Warning: this software might be considered as real hacking tool comparable to possessing burglary tools. Either only use on private laptop or after agreement of your local company security team.
Hashcat is based on GPU power and not CPU power. This means the speed of cracking depends on the quality and speed of your graphical card(s). Modern graphics card can have up to 4000 cores. Hashcat is written intelligently to use these 4000 cores via parallel processing or multiple cards.
Download the software from the site and unzip it on your local PC.
Hashcat requires for cracking BCODES the following format per line:
<<USERID>>$<<BCODE HASH>>
For the example above this results into the following file:
The brute force method
Let’s start by making a file with only TESTUSER6. This is stored in the file TestuserBcodeHashes.txt.
To start the hacking process go to the CMD command prompt, and proceed to the hashcat directory. Then key in this command:
Long command, but some part are simpler: -a 3 means brute force, -m 7700 means hashes are SAP BCODE hashes, file output and output, and very important the command to abort if the GPU temperature exceeds 80 degrees Celsius.
For full help options: go to the Hashcat website or key in Hashcat64 –help.
Result of this command is following screen:
The brute force attack will use some common pattern, but as you can see per pattern it takes about 16 hours (faster GPU means less time).
Guessing speed is at 57.000 tries per second, which is about 5 billion tries per day. Having a password with 8 random characters (26 letters, 10 digits, 33 specials) would take 69*69*69*69*69*69*69*69 = 513.000 billion options, meaning it would take 100.000 days.
Pretty good you would say. But nobody uses the brute force method.
Attacking with 10.000 most commonly used password list
If you have only letters, then the guesses for most users will be 26*26*26*26*26*26*26*26 = 208 billion only. By filtering out the hardly used q and x, it could even be 110 billion only.
Prevention 2: disallow the old hashes
Set parameter login/password_compliance_to_current_policy to 1 to forbid the old passwords to be used (in old systems this might require some testing before it is done in productive system, and changes of old passwords that are there for very long time).
Prevention 4: instructions to basis and authorization team to use the password generator for initial passwords
When generating new password: do use the password generator button. This will generate very complex password. Do use it.
Also you should make it known to basis and authorization team not to use simple and repetitive passwords like Welcome-2018 or Passw0rd! Soon you will see a pattern and can already guess new users passwords that they will select. Tell them to use the password generator.
Prevention 5: increase hash strength
You can increase the hash strength. This will make the attack last longer, since it simply takes more computing time to try stronger hashes. Read more in this blog.
Next blog
The next blog will explain on the hacking the SAP PASSCODE.
Main versions are delivered in new netweaver releases and/or support packages. There is a special blog written on the subject of last digit patching.
You can also check the main SAP UI component in the ABAP part with System/Status:
Per version you can look up upcoming ABAP UI component support pack stack information and planning at this SAP site.
Finding version of a specific standard SAP app
If you want to know the version information of a standard SAP app, you simply click on the Information button in the personalization when you in the app:
Recalculation of app indexes is needed after an upgrade or support package installation with new apps. Also when you install extra addon this is needed. Another use case is when you have deployed your own new app via transport or when you applied a large OSS note with new app code via transport. Program to run is: /UI5/APP_INDEX_CALCULATE. You can run for single app. Or after support package: run in full. It is wise to have this program run in delta mode at least daily.
If you have a custom theme created you can set it as default for everybody. For instruction see this blog. This blog also describes how to reset a users’ theme setting in case of issues a user might have after upgrade (garbled screen).
/UI2/FLP start issues
Transaction code /UI2/FLP can be used to start the FIORI launchpad. There can be issues using Internet Explorer. The best browser to develop and test issues is Chrome.
For user measurement and use of the ODATA calls, you can use the FIORI ODATA metering functions in the Netweaver Gateway component. Read more in this blog.
Configure backend system to jump to FIORI frontend server
In some use cases, you want to jump from the ABAP backend system to the FIORI frontend server. This is possible, but requires setup. The setup is described at sap help files online.
FIORI search
To activate FIORI search, please read this dedicated blog.
FIORI notifications
FIORI can sent push notifications to the end-user:
To set up these push notifications, read this dedicated blog.
FIORI app support is a powerful tool to find out what the source of issue there is for your FIORI app. It can check missing ODATA activation, missing SICF activation, authorization issues. Log files can be downloaded to SAP for further analysis. Read more on FIORI app support in this blog.
FIORI apps impacted by an S4HANA upgrade
FIORI apps can change between versions. Older apps are replaced by new ones. You might need to act on this if the apps are used by the business. To get a list of SAP FIORI app differences, follow the instructions from this SAP blog.
Testing FIORI tiles for slow network or high latency
FIORI tiles and web developments might be slow with users further away from the server. If the application has many round trips built in the increase network latency will definitely kill the end user performance.
Read more in this blog on how you can simulate a distant user in Chrome to analyze the issue.
Manage KPI tiles
SAP FIORI comes with a powerful tool to setup KPI tiles based on embedded HANA views. Read more about the manage KPI tiles in this blog.
A system refresh of a netweaver gateway hub system is not needed in most cases. In case of embedded gateway: if the system is refreshed (for example from productive system towards acceptance system), running the cache refresh and UI5 app indexing is sufficient. See OSS note 3111069 – Task list clarification post System copy/System Refresh in Embedded deployment.
Monitoring FIORI gateway system
You can monitor FIORI gateway system using SAP Focused Run. Read this dedicated blog on monitoring Gateway systems.
ODATA V2 versus ODATA V4
SAP is moving from ODATA V2 towards ODATA V4. Read more on ODATA V4 activation in this blog.
FIORI 3D visualization demo
For a demo on 3D visualization using FIORI element goto SAP web page and load the attached file: SAP Pocket Knife (unzip before use):
The advantage of using the FIORI element to show 3D visualization is that you don’t need to install the fat client for 3D viewer on your laptop or desktop.
