While cloud computing has transformed business and IT, it has also increased infrastructure security complexity significantly. The issue is to integrate a wide range of tools from development to production to close security gaps. In both apps and the platforms they run on.
This is where cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP) come in. They shift the focus by securing workloads and apps with an integrated, lifecycle security and compliance approach. Gartner, Inc., a research and consultancy group, introduced the concept, which is gaining traction. This is due to the fact that CNAPP has the potential to revolutionize security as we see it.
The Increasing Difficulty of Cloud Security
A classic lift-and-move methodology becomes increasingly untenable as enterprises shift from an on-premises to a cloud-centric mindset. Many assets are fleeting and dynamic. Traditional security approaches are typically unprepared to manage containers and serverless settings. As a result, silos, gaps, and overall complexity grow.
Organizations have manually pieced together DevSecOps with ten or more disparate security tools, some new and some old, each with siloed responsibilities and a constrained view of application risk, according to Gartner, Inc. in the paper Innovation Insight for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms, published in August 2021 (paywall).
These include cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM), cloud security posture management (CSPM), cloud application workload protection platforms (CASB), and more.
Additionally, legacy vendors frequently acquire new companies to add to their portfolio of cloud security products without addressing silos. As a result, they lack the broad perspective and context required to recognise, rank, and address risk, including across virtual machines.
Managing the Clouds to Avoid Security Storms
CNAPP directly addresses the end-to-end unification of cloud security by integrating various perspectives of risk, allowing companies to find and resolve security flaws.
The strategy integrates five essential elements, as listed by Gartner, Inc.
- Scanning for infrastructure as code (IaC)
- Container inspection
- Platforms for protecting cloud workloads (CWPPs)
- Management of cloud infrastructure entitlements (CIEM)
- Management of cloud security posture (CSPM)
With regard to managing, viewing, and configuring cloud assets in new ways, CIEM gives CNAPP the capacity to do so while simultaneously viewing relationships, privileges, and a lot more. The issues with governance and compliance are also addressed with the help of this robust identification system.
The Next Generation of Robust Cloud Security
Even if your company isn’t quite ready to take the plunge just yet, developing a CNAPP strategy to cover risk to your AWS, Azure, or GCP infrastructure is crucial. To begin the journey, think of the framework in a comprehensive and all-encompassing approach.
The goal of CNAPP isn’t to compile a number of goods or mark every box on a Gartner, Inc. diagram. Additionally, it goes beyond a tactical strategy.
Instead, a company should concentrate on expanding its understanding of cloud risk and developing automated processes for repair that happen as early in the software lifecycle as is practical. To strengthen the company’s overall security posture, it is a good idea to work toward an integrated and complete CNAPP architecture. One that provides DevOps and production engineering teams with visibility and insights.
Solutions that combine CIEM and CSPM, provide capabilities for network configuration monitoring and scanning of secrets, sensitive data, and more can be extremely useful as enterprises transition to a CNAPP paradigm.
Make no mistake; CNAPP is the face of cloud security in the future. Businesses looking to have a strategic head start are already investing in CNAPP. They are benefiting from taking an identity-first strategy, even though no vendor currently offers a comprehensive solution, and vendor road maps will change as the area expands and matures.
Conclusion
A CNAPP is a comprehensive tool that provides DevOps and DevSecOps teams with an automated, unified security solution. That tackles every stage of the application life cycle, including workloads, containers, security posture, and compliance. It offers general security and visibility for environments that use private, public, hybrid, and multiple clouds.
Additionally, CNAPP automates tasks and checks your infrastructure and settings to thwart threats, increase productivity, and speed up response times when vulnerabilities are present.
A lack of resources is a problem for many firms while cyberattacks increase concurrently. This has given rise to an invention that could assist these businesses in securing their data from intrusions by seeing vulnerabilities on-premises or across many clouds before they happen. CNAPP is transforming the way we protect clouds and revolutionizing our understanding of digital security.
