Bad actors—either nation-states or criminal enterprises—are working overtime to get into your systems and take them over for their own nefarious purposes. And if you aren’t updating the security patches on your SAP products as you should, it’s kind of like going on vacation and leaving your house unlocked.

Don’t be surprised if you come back and find the place looted.

On April 6, 2021, security researchers from Onapsis (the only SAP-endorsed partner for cybersecurity and compliance), working with SAP, issued a stark alert. Bad-actor activity and techniques could lead “full control of unsecured SAP applications.”

That means if you aren’t updating the security patches on your SAP products, there is a very good chance cyber criminals could enter and take over your entire network. And that could mean a severe blow to your bottom line and reputation, along with additional time, money, and energy trying to clean up the resulting mess. Adding to the list of potential miseries, regulatory compliance for financial (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), privacy (General Data Protection Regulation), and other mandates may be at risk, as unpatched and misconfigured SAP systems present a deficiency in IT controls that would result in audit and compliance violations and penalties, the report states.