A Product-Line-Engineering Framework for Secure Enterprise-Resource-Planning Systems

Enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) systems are highly complex, incorporating critical data and configuration options that can easily cause security threats or risks. While product-line engineering (PLE) provides methods for dealing with configurability, security concerns are not of primary concern in established PLE frameworks. In this paper, we extend the perspectives of established PLE frameworks to incorporate security engineering for ERP systems. We build on a literature review of 15 years (2008–2022) of research on security engineering for ERP systems or product lines. Our framework incorporates three perspectives (i.e., application, security, and domain engineering) with 16 processes and 24 activities. We discuss our framework with respect to the ERP reference architecture and relevant security concerns. Our contributions are intended to help researchers and practitioners obtain a reference on how security engineering can be integrated into PLE for ERP systems.