Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial applications are foundational to modern business operations, but they can also be a source of significant risk if not properly secured. Beneath routine workflows and approvals, critical vulnerabilities often remain hidden. These aren’t exotic, headline-making cyber threats. They’re misconfigured roles, excessive access rights, and outdated controls—issues that persist across even the most mature IT landscapes.
As organizations grow, adopt cloud technologies, or restructure operations, complexity increases. This often leads to blind spots in access control and user provisioning, especially when manual processes or legacy systems are involved. According to the 2024 Ponemon Institute, over 60% of data breaches in enterprise environments stem from internal mismanagement of access rights or poor visibility into user activity.
Why Business Leaders Can’t Ignore ERP Security Gaps
These gaps are not just IT headaches; they represent systemic risks that can disrupt operations, violate compliance mandates, and enable fraud. Common culprits include:
- Privilege creep—users accumulating access over time beyond what’s needed
- Weak segregation of duties (SoD)—users assigned conflicting roles across finance and operations
- Lack of real-time oversight—organizations relying on periodic audits rather than continuous monitoring
When access control failures occur in systems like SAP, Oracle, or Workday, the consequences can be severe, ranging from financial misstatements to regulatory penalties.
Moving Beyond Manual Controls with Automation
To reduce these risks, business and IT leaders must shift from reactive audits to proactive, automated governance. Solutions from Delinea and Fastpath, a Delinea company, provide the frameworks and technology to help close these gaps effectively.
Delinea specializes in privileged access management (PAM), enabling enterprises to enforce least privilege across critical applications. Its platform dynamically assigns and removes access based on real-time needs, reducing standing privileges and improving accountability.
Fastpath extends this protection with real-time SoD analysis and control automation. Integrated with major ERP platforms, Fastpath continuously evaluates user roles against policy rules and flags conflicts before they result in violations. Its audit-ready reporting tools also help simplify compliance with regulations like SOX, GDPR, and HIPAA.
Action Plan for Technology Leaders
To strengthen security across ERP and financial systems, leaders should take the following steps:
- Audit existing access: Identify high-risk accounts, excessive privileges, and outdated role definitions.
- Define and enforce SoD policies: Implement policy-based controls and real-time conflict monitoring across business-critical applications.
- Deploy PAM solutions: Limit privileged access with just-in-time provisioning and session monitoring to reduce the attack surface.
- Automate compliance: Replace static spreadsheets and manual reviews with continuous monitoring and automated control testing.
As enterprise systems become more interconnected, securing them requires precision, automation, and constant vigilance. With tools like Delinea and Fastpath, organizations can modernize access control, close critical gaps, and ensure their ERP systems support—not undermine—business resilience and growth.
What This Means for ERP Insiders
Hidden security gaps in ERP systems are business risks, not just IT problems. Excessive user privileges, outdated access roles, and poor segregation of duties can expose financial systems to fraud, compliance violations, and operational disruption. These vulnerabilities often go undetected until damage is done—making proactive detection and remediation a strategic imperative for business leaders.
Automation is essential for managing access and enforcing policies at scale. Manual reviews and periodic audits are no longer sufficient in today’s hybrid, fast-changing ERP environments. Tools from Delinea and Fastpath provide continuous monitoring, automate SoD enforcement, and apply least privilege principles to reduce risk and ensure compliance across complex application landscapes.
Modernizing security controls strengthens resilience and audit readiness. Enterprises that adopt intelligent access governance and privileged access management solutions gain more than just protection—they improve operational efficiency, accelerate audit processes, and reduce the risk of human error. Investing in these technologies is a critical step toward securing digital transformation efforts.
