G’Day All,
Considering the fact that so many people out here, have so selflessly shared their expertise through blogs, answers etc. So its only fair that I do my bit to balance the scales. Now if what I contribute is worth it or not, that's a different story and I shall leave it to the moderators to judge for themselves.
The topic I would like to present to you is ARA. Just a heads up that whatever is presented here is just an overview of my understanding of what ARA is (from what I read here and SAP documentation) and how it works. I’ll leave it to the experts here to make corrections/suggestions if the need be for the benefit of everyone reading this document and myself included.
A lot of the key terminology has been explained rather brilliantly by Alessandro in the following two documents, so there is no point in me trying to reinvent the wheel.
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-54434
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-54530
So here we go.
Access Risk Analysis - ARA Analyzing Risks associated with Access | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Risk: when an Employee in a Company is assigned with Task/Tasks that could provide him/her with an opportunity to commit fraud Employee -> Company -> Task/Tasks -> Opportunity -> Fraud
Tasks are assigned to the employee in form of Roles, which are made up of Actions/Tcodes, which in turn are made up Permissions/Authorizations | ||||
Workshops with BP Owners and other relevant personnel would have to be conducted to gather information about the Risks associated with the following:
Roles -> Actions/Transaction Codes -> Permissions/Authorizations
Role1 Action1 Action2 Permission1 Permission2 Role2 Action3 Action4 Permission3 Permission4 | ||||
Based on the information gathered we need to define the Risks
Role1+Role2= SOD Risk . Action1= Critical Action . Action 3= Critical Action .Permission1= Critical Permission Function1= Action1 + Action3 . Function 2= Permission1 Risk 1= Function1 . Risk 2= Function2 Rule is a condition: If Function1 is given to a user Then it is a Risk Therefore Rule1 is generated against Function1 and Risk1
*Example: Action1= XK99: Vendor Mass Maintenance .Action3= ME2L: Maintain Purchase Order - Purchasing Risk= Create a fictitious vendor and initiate purchases to that vendor | ||||
Run a Risk Analysis against all the Risks defined | ||||
Based on the Analysis, Remediate the Risks by executing cleanup process by Re-designing/defining the roles. This can be done through Simulation to check if the defined Risks will be eliminated if the cleanup is executed. | ||||
In certain unavoidable circumstances Remediation isn’t an option, so the solution is to Mitigate the Risk
Mitigation
So when you create a Mitigation Control: You specify the Risk Ids and the BU they are associated with-> The Risk Ids will look up the Function they are associated with-> Functions will look up the Actions (T-codes) they are associated with. Assign an Owner and Controller to the MC and tie all of this up to an end user/role/profile who is assigned with a role/roles, which could pose a threat. | ||||
To Ensure all the hard work done so far does not go for a waste, run SOD review, Audit Trails and Risk Analysis on a periodic basis |
This entire process is termed as 'SOD Management Process'.
Segregation of Duties (SoD) is an internal control within a Company implemented to prevent or decrease the risk of errors or regulatory irregularities and ensure corrective action is taken. Ideally, no one individual must have the authority of:
Creation . Modification . Reviewing . Deletion
SoD ensures no single user has access to separate phases of these business transactions. This is done by Dividing, Distributing and Allocating key tasks amongst various individuals thereby eliminating or at least reducing the possibility of errors and fraud.
All of this is carried out in three separate phases:
Phase 1
Risk Recognition
Rule Building & Validation
Phase 2
Risk Analysis
Remediation
Mitigation
Phase 3
Continuous Compliance
*Credit for the following SOD Management Process flow goes to: Alessandro& Colleen
| Steps | Description |
|---|---|
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  | Gather a list of applicable SOD conflicts that allow fraud or generate significant errors. The outcome of this step is that your business has determined what is an unacceptable risk that they want to report on and manage via remediation or mitigation.
Helpful documents: |
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  | Build the rule set based on the recognized risks from step 1. The outcome of this step is the technical rule set to analyze the user and/or role assignments.
Helpful documents: |
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  | Analyze the SoD output. This can be performed with the help of SAP GRC Access Control. In case of manual analysis, for each user, analyze if he/she has the access to perform any of the conflicting functions defined in step 1. The outcome is basically to provide the business insight to alternatives for correcting or eliminating discovered risks.
Helpful documents: |
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  | In this step, evaluate if the conflicting tasks can be performed by an alternate person. If so, role changes and/or user reassignments can be performed to segregate duties properly. The outcome must be a very low number of remaining risks that need mitigation.
Helpful documents: |
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  | If it would not be possible to remediate the existing conflicts, consider formulating an appropriate control to mitigate the risk. This would typically entail working with the business to setup additional monitoring procedures that ensure to compensate the risk. The outcome must be no remaining risks.
Helpful documents: Internal Controls - a step towards strong controls Defining Mitigating Controls / Compensating Controls |
| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  | Finally, establish a new continuous process wherein every access request is reviewed against the SoD conflict matrix prior to provisioning on the system. Also make sure that all role changes must be analyzed and remediated before implementing. The outcome, and also final result, your system remains clean.
|
Now that we’ve covered the what and the why part we have to get our hands dirty and physically create them. If you have access to a Server, after following SAP documentation for 'From Post-Installation to First Risk Analysis' and 'Enhanced Access Risk Analysis', try executing the following tasks:
- Create test users using SU01
- Create test roles with Critical/Conflicting Actions using PFCG
- Assign role/roles to test users including roles for Risk Owner , Mitigation Controller
- Create Access Control Owners in NWBC
- Check Configuration Parameters of Risk Analysis: SPRO -> IMG -> GRC -> Access Control -> Maintain Configuration Settings
- Create/Check Business Process and Sub Process: SPRO -> IMG -> GRC -> Access Control -> Maintain Business Process and Sub processes
- This will come in handy when creating Functions and Risks
- Create Organizations: SPRO -> IMG -> GRC -> Shared Master Data -> create a Root Organization Hierarchy
- You cannot create a Mitigation Control without this
- Add Owners to the created Organization in NWBC: Setup -> Organizations
- Run following Sync Jobs: SPRO -> IMG -> GRC -> Access Control -> Synchronization Jobs
- Authorization Sync
- Repository Object Sync
- Create the following in NWBC
- Functions
- Access Risks
- Mitigation Control
- Run a Risk Analysis against the Risks
- Remediate using Simulation and see if it works
- Mitigate Risks against User/Role/Profile
- Create Alerts: SPRO -> IMG -> GRC -> Access Control -> ARA -> Generate Alerts
- Setup Batch Risk Analysis on a periodic basis: SPRO -> IMG -> GRC -> Access Control -> ARA -> Batch Risk Analysis
I sincerely hope this document will help you in your pursuit to get a grasp on what ARA is all about.
Please free to correct me if I made any mistakes or if you would like to add more on this matter. It would be nice to know what is done in regards to ARA, once we cross the bridge (the real world).
Regards,
Leo..