In today’s cybersecurity world, traditional security measures designed for on-premises environments are proving to be inadequate in safeguarding cloud-native applications and services.

The rapid adoption of cloud te­chnologies, dynamic settings, and contemporary de­velopment practices ne­cessitates a new se­curity approach. This approach is centered around protecting applications throughout their lifecycle within cloud environments.

Enter the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), a comprehensive solution aimed at securing cloud-native applications while enabling DevOps practices and reducing friction. In this article, let’s explore the concept of CNAPPs, how they work, and their significance in the realm of cloud security.

What Are CNAPPs?

CNAPPs combine multiple security operations into a single UI, streamlining and centralizing various security functions. The term is closely related to Cloud Native Security Platforms (CNSPs), a concept historically introduced by Palo Alto Networks.

CNAPPs aim to offe­r a comprehensive solution that safe­guards cloud-native applications from start to finish in their lifecycle­. At its core, a CNAPP integrates capabilities such as Cloud Security Posture Management, Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP), and CI/CD security.

This unified approach ensures that cloud infrastructure, security, and DevOps teams can collaborate seamlessly to deliver comprehensive security coverage. CNAPPs offer increased visibility, risk quantification, safe software development practices, and an encompassing solution to various cloud security challenges.

What Issues Does A CNAPP Address?

CNAPPs are designed to tackle the evolving security challenges posed by cloud-native technologies. Here’s how CNAPPs address key cloud security issues:

  • Increased visibility and risk quantification: CNAPPs improves the overall cloud infrastructure threats visibility by combining various cloud security capabilities into a single solution. This holistic approach allows security teams to assess risks in the cloud environment effectively and take immediate corrective actions.
  • Integrated cloud security method: By unifying reporting, scanning, and threat detection across cloud environments, CNAPPs eliminate the need for data transmission across multiple platforms and software programs. This integration minimizes human errors, reduces complexity, and accelerates response times to detected threats.
  • Secure software development: Incorporating CNAPPs into continuous integration and delivery practices allows for quick scanning and response to configuration errors. This helps developers to identify and correct insecure cloud deployments early in the application development lifecycle.

Advantages Of CNAPP

Deploying a CNAPP provides several advantages that cater to the unique challenges posed by cloud-native environments:

  • Enhanced visibility and collaboration: CNAPPs offer a single pane of glass that identifies, links, and visualizes issues, allowing teams to collaborate effectively. It helps prioritize risks by analyzing millions of parameters and offers alerts, suggestions, and remediation guidance for your business .
  • Simplified security infrastructure: By centralizing security operations, CNAPPs reduce the need for multiple-point products, minimizing complexity and overhead. This visibility extends across configurations, assets, permissions, code, and workloads.
  • Comprehensive cloud coverage: CNAPPs provide insights and visibility throughout a multi-cloud footprint, encompassing IaaS and PaaS environments, VMs, containers, serverless workloads, and development environments. This coverage identifies and corrects problems early in the application lifecycle.
  • Integrated security in DevOps: CNAPPs seamlessly integrate with development and DevOps tools, injecting security controls at each stage of the DevOps cycle. This helps your developers take responsibility for security in their work and promotes better collaboration between you and your other teams.

Endnote

As cloud-native technologies are reshaping the application world, security plans must also evolve to match the changing nature of these environments.

Cloud-native application security platforms provide extensive security solutions that address the challenges posed by cloud apps and services. CNAPPS does this by providing increased visibility, integrated security, and a focus on secure software development,

As a result, with CNAPPs your business can adopt cloud technology with confidence ensuring the best security measures are available over the lifetime of your apps.