A security architecture review is the structured assessment of the security design of a technology system or programme — evaluating whether the access control model, data protection measures, network configuration, audit logging capability, and regulatory compliance posture meet the security requirements of the organisation and the applicable regulatory framework. In ERP and EPM implementations, the security architecture review is a pre-go-live quality gate that verifies the system is configured to protect financial data — not an optional review conducted if time permits.
Review Scope in ERP and EPM Implementations
A security architecture review for a finance system implementation covers five domains:
- Identity and access management: How users are provisioned, de-provisioned, and authenticated. Whether single sign-on is configured. Whether role assignments reflect the least-privilege principle and have been reviewed against the SoD conflict matrix.
- Data access control: Whether sensitive financial data — consolidation inputs, planning assumptions, statutory reports — is accessible only to users with a business need. Whether row-level and cell-level security in EPM applications is configured as designed in the system design document.
- Network security: Whether the system is accessible only through approved network paths. Whether cloud EPM environments (Oracle EPM Cloud) are configured with approved IP allowlisting. Whether data in transit is encrypted to the required standard.
- Audit logging: Whether all material user actions — data modifications, calculation executions, user provisioning changes — are logged with sufficient detail for audit evidence and forensic investigation. Whether logs are retained for the required period and are tamper-resistant.
- Regulatory compliance: Whether the configuration meets applicable regulatory requirements — ZATCA data residency requirements for Saudi implementations, SAMA IT governance framework for financial institutions, UAE PDPL for personal data handling, and Egyptian ETA requirements for e-invoice data integrity.
Common Gaps and Failure Modes
The specific gap that creates the most persistent post-go-live security exposure is audit logging that is not enabled by default in Oracle EBS or EPM Cloud and is not explicitly configured during implementation. When audit logging is absent, there is no record of who modified a financial data point, when, or from what value. For regulatory audits by ZATCA or ETA, the absence of a complete audit trail is a compliance failure — not only a governance concern. Audit logging must be configured as part of the system build and validated in the security architecture review, not enabled reactively after an audit request exposes its absence.
How Loop Wise Solutions Produces This
Loop Wise Solutions conducts the security architecture review as a structured assessment against a defined review checklist, mapped to the client’s applicable regulatory framework. The review is conducted in the pre-production environment — after all configuration is complete and before user acceptance testing begins — so that security findings can be remediated before business users access the system. We produce a review report with findings classified by severity, a remediation plan with ownership and timeline, and a re-review confirmation when material findings are resolved.
