In 2026, that reactive approach is no longer enough. SAP landscapes now extend beyond traditional ERP into SAP S/4HANA, Fiori, SAP BTP, cloud-connected applications, AI Agents, bots, and increasingly complex access models. As a result, SAP security assessments need to go beyond basic user provisioning and SoD checks.
A good SAP security assessment should answer one practical question:
Is our SAP security model still fit for the business, technology, and risk realities of today?
That is the real purpose of an SAP Security Assessment Checklist.
To make this more practical, we have also included an editable SAP Security Assessment Checklist that can be used as a working review template for enterprise teams.
Start with role design, not just access requests
One of the most common weaknesses in SAP environments is poor role design. Organizations often focus on approvals and access workflows, while the actual role structure remains bloated, outdated, or overly permissive.
If roles are not aligned to business responsibilities, every downstream control becomes harder, provisioning becomes messy, SoD risks increase, access reviews become weaker, and audit findings become more likely.
Expert Recommendation
A meaningful assessment should therefore examine whether roles are still business-aligned, whether access has accumulated over time, and whether technical complexity is creating hidden risk.
Review access lifecycle controls, not just approvals
Approvals alone do not make access governance mature.
A strong SAP security review should assess how access is requested, approved, provisioned, modified, and removed across the full lifecycle. This includes Joiner-Mover-Leaver processes, temporary access, emergency access, and access changes triggered by organizational movement.
This is also where many organizations still overlook non-human (digital) access such as service IDs, interfaces, AI agents and bots. These identities often carry powerful access but are not reviewed with the same rigor as employee accounts.
Expert recommendation
If your SAP security assessment excludes technical users, interfaces, and automation accounts, it is incomplete.
In 2026, user access governance must extend beyond human users (also referred to as Digital Access)
For organizations planning an internal review, audit readiness exercise, or transformation-led security review, this framework is also available as a practical downloadable assessment worksheet.
Reassess SoD and critical access with business context
Many enterprises have SoD rulesets, but fewer have an SoD program that actually reflects business risk.
A security assessment should evaluate whether SoD conflicts are still relevant, whether the ruleset is current, whether ownership is clear, and whether mitigating controls are actively maintained. The same applies to critical access and sensitive transaction risk, which often remain under-governed even when formal SoD processes exist.
Expert recommendation
Do not measure SoD maturity by the number of conflicts detected. Measure it by how effectively high-risk conflicts are understood, challenged, and reduced.
That is a far more useful indicator of control health.
Challenge privileged access more aggressively
Privileged access remains one of the clearest indicators of SAP security maturity. Firefighter IDs, administrative roles, emergency access, and elevated technical permissions should all be reviewed carefully.
A good assessment should examine whether privileged access is genuinely exceptional, whether usage is monitored properly, and whether access is still justified. In many environments, emergency access processes exist formally but are treated informally in practice.
That is where control confidence starts to break down.
Expert recommendation
Ask a simple question during your review:
Can we clearly explain who has elevated access, why they have it, and how it is monitored?
If the answer is inconsistent, privileged access should be a priority remediation area.
Evaluate whether access reviews are actually meaningful
Periodic user access reviews are often treated as a compliance task rather than a real control. Managers approve access without sufficient visibility, reviewers focus on completion rather than challenge, and evidence is retained without improving actual security posture.
A practical SAP security assessment should test whether access reviews are producing meaningful decisions, especially for high-risk access and sensitive roles.
This matters because an access review process that generates approvals without accountability creates a false sense of control.
Expert recommendation
If your user access review process is optimized for speed and completion, but not for decision quality, it needs redesign.
Include modern SAP security areas. Not just legacy controls
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is assessing SAP security using yesterday’s control assumptions.
Your 2026 review should also cover whether your security model has adapted to:
- SAP Fiori access structures
- SAP S/4HANA transformation complexity
- SAP BTP role collections and trust configurations
- Cloud-connected and hybrid SAP landscapes
This is where many organizations have growing exposure. Core ERP may be relatively controlled, while newer SAP environments evolve faster than governance practices.
Expert recommendation
Do not treat BTP, Fiori, and S/4HANA security as separate side topics. They should now be part of the mainstream SAP security assessment conversation.
Final thoughts
A strong SAP Security Assessment Checklist is not about proving that controls exist. It is about determining whether they are effective, current, and aligned to enterprise risk.
Organizations that assess SAP security honestly tend to identify recurring issues in role design, excessive access, weak governance ownership, outdated SoD practices, privileged access misuse, and fragmented modern SAP security controls.
That is precisely why periodic SAP security assessments matter.
In 2026, SAP security should no longer be treated as a narrow administrative discipline. It should be reviewed as a business-critical control function that directly supports risk management, audit readiness, compliance, and transformation success.
If your SAP security model has not been reviewed recently, this is the right time to do it properly.
If you want to use this framework more practically within your organization, you can access the editable SAP Security Assessment Checklist at the end of this article.
