Today’s cloud environments and the traditional security tools that accompany them often fail to provide the visibility and context needed to prevent breaches. As sensitive data is increasingly moved to cloud servers, it is important to utilise applications and tools for better security.
While cloud-native platforms bring agility and complexity to systems, this complexity creates risks. This is why organisations are turning to CNAPP (Cloud Native Application Protection Platform) to unify security across their cloud stack.
What is CNAPP (and Why It Matters)?
CNAPP is a “unified and integrated set of security and compliance capabilities” designed to secure cloud-native applications across their development and production systems. As a unified platform, CNAPP consolidates several previously siloed security functionalities into a single platform.
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) provides an overall view of the security posture of cloud environments while identifying misconfigurations
- Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) monitors and manages user access and permissions within the cloud
- Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP) protects workloads in the cloud from threats and malware at runtime
CNAPP offers a wide range of benefits, including substantial security features that safeguard your organisation and everything within your cloud. It not only detects risks and prioritises which ones are critical and need to be immediately addressed, but it also allows for fast remediation with automated and guided options with GenAI.
Visibility Across The Full Application Lifecycle
As more companies adopt cloud services for their business, the need for cloud-native security has become crucial. However, the traditional systems that required agents to be deployed on every asset provided only partial coverage, which can leave dangerous blind spots in one’s security.
With CNAPP’s applications, you can utilise tools that provide continuous security across the application lifecycle from development to production, allowing for monitoring everything from infrastructure-as-code to runtime workloads. This gives teams a 360-degree risk perspective.
Cloud-Native Threats Demand Contextual Analysis
Threats in the cloud are not isolated. With CNAPP’s contextual intelligence, those overseeing the security of their cloud can link any misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and identity risks that may be present. This helps teams focus on the issues that pose real business threats.
Through CNAPP’s many security tools, such as Cloud Detection and Response (CDR), a team can safeguard their cloud environment by continuously monitoring for suspicious activity, which allows them to detect, investigate, and respond quickly to any potential security incidents that may arise to hurt their business.
Alignment With DevSecOps and Shift-Left Security
With the integration of CI/CD pipelines, CNAPP can enable security testing early in the development process. This allows teams working in the cloud to catch issues before they reach production and reduce remediation costs.
The automated CI/CD Security checks within the development pipeline ensure that vulnerabilities are identified and addressed early. This is especially important, as many cyber threats are too overpowering for many security teams.
CI/CD is a key component of CNAPP because CNAPP is concerned about security in development and production environments. This allows developers to build secure software from the ground up, while fixing issues earlier in the process when they are far less costly to repair.
Regulatory Compliance and Governance
With built-in policy enforcement and automated auditing, CNAPP can help organisations stay compliant with many frameworks, including SOC 2, GDPR, IOS 27001, and HIPAA, across their multi-cloud environments.
In a world where cybersecurity threats are always present, it is crucial to ensure that a business’s cloud system is always protected. With CNAPP and its wide range of tools, an organisation can not only maintain its security but also prevent potential threats.
