A Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is a comprehensive security system that offers centralized controls, threat detection, and incident response capabilities to protect cloud-based apps and infrastructure. With the use of a single user interface, Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs) combine and centralize many security operations that were previously dispersed.
Understanding CNAPP
The term CNAPP was coined by Gartner, a technological research and consulting firm that delivers actionable, objective insights to various clients. According to Gartner, the CNAPP incorporates functionality for Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), and CI/CD security into a single, end-to-end solution to safeguard cloud-native apps throughout the whole application lifecycle.
Various CNAPP vendors provide these CNAPP solutions, which ensure complete security coverage for cloud-native apps and highlight the necessity for businesses to direct their attention towards cloud-native security solutions that offer a whole lifecycle strategy for application security rather than a hodgepodge of tools.
Key Components of a Cnapp Solution
To help you monitor and secure your cloud infrastructure and services, a CNAPP often includes a variety of technologies. To improve cloud security for your software development activities, it may also be incorporated into your DevOps and DevSecOps pipelines and processes.
These key technologies or components include;
Artifacts Scanning
One of the essential elements of the CNAPP that supports the shift-left security strategy is artifact scanning. It is necessary to integrate risk recognition and scanning into the development organization’s pipeline tools.
When scanning artifacts, whether they are compiled binary or source code, there are two main areas to focus on. They include application security testing and software composition analysis (SCA).
Any open-source libraries that were incorporated into an artifact are examined by SCA. The version and license of the currently used library are then flagged. Using such knowledge, it can identify any typical vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) and their severity, link them to an assessment, or use it as documentation for the artifact in the repository where it is stored.
Static (SAST), dynamic (DAST), and interactive (IAST) are the three main categories of application security testing. SAST scans the source code or generated artifact for optimal procedures and frequent errors like unchecked buffers that can be detected in the code. During operation, DAST treats the artifact as a “black box,” searching for items like Input validation and insecure pages, while IAST simply examines the application code when it is being executed
Cloud Configuration
#1. Cloud Security Posture Management
Detecting, preventing, and correcting misconfigurations that expose cloud resources that could result in security incidents is the goal of the cloud security posture management (CSPM) software solution. Additionally, CSPM solutions make sure that cloud resources and operations follow statutory and regulatory requirements. Security teams get alerts when a resource is no longer compliant, so they can fix it. To address security vulnerabilities, uphold the highest standards, and maintain a sound security posture, CSPM offers guided remediation or automated remediation in addition to visibility and alarms. A CSPM can be used for monitoring and analyzing security risks as well as for incident response in the event of threats.
#2. Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
Coordinating access rights, permissions, or privileges for the identities of a single or several cloud environments is the security procedure known as CIEM. This procedure can identify and avoid dangers caused by privileges that are more or broader than they should be.
It usually upholds the principle of least privilege and scans the configuration of your cloud architecture to look for unauthorized access to resources and report them.
#3. Cloud Security posture Management (CSPM)
The constant monitoring of cloud resources and information regarding their configuration are provided by CSPM. It evaluates cloud resources in accordance with standards for appropriate configuration, locating any cases of misconfiguration. By utilizing standards and frameworks that are both built-in and customized, the system maintains compliance and automatically corrects resources that are non-compliant. CSPM prevents the spread of misconfigurations to production settings by analyzing resources during development.
#4. Cloud Service Network Security
Cloud Service Network Security (CSNS) is a crucial feature of total cloud-native security and genuine CNAPP solutions, which basically focuses on protecting your cloud infrastructure in real-time. With regard to the changing network perimeters typical of cloud-native applications, CSNS offers cloud network security features. CSNS offers granular segmentation and safeguards both East-West and North-South traffic. Typical illustrations of CSNS operations include:
- Next-generation firewall (NGFW).
- Load balancers.
- Denial of Service (DoS) protection
- Web Application and API protection (WAAP)
- SSL/TLS inspection.
#5. Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) Scanning
The ability to automatically run every aspect of an application is a major selling point of the cloud-native ecosystem. IaC can take the form of Terraform blueprints, Dockerfiles, CloudFormation templates, and Kubernetes manifests. IaC scanning intends to detect glaring security weaknesses before they reach production and cause issues.
Aside from ensuring to reduce the risks associated with cloud misconfiguration, IaC scanning is a type of technique used for validating the code standards for the cloud infrastructure configuration files written by the scanning software itself in the CI/CD pipeline phase (much like code review). When writing IaC code, you can manually initiate IaC scanning in order to check the security of your fresh code.
The following should be part of the IaC scanning solution:
- Prevent Drift: Before deployment, scan IaC files. Retrace the path of production-level configuration errors.
- Prioritize Risk: Based on the context, standards, and dependencies of the application, prioritize security fixes.
- Fix the Issue at the Source: Automatically produce pull requests to obtain fix suggestions at the source.
Runtime Protection
#1. Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)
This section would particularly interest teams working in operations. The CNAPP security suite’s runtime enforcement component is known as a CWPP. It strives to implement a zero-trust model where nothing is presumed to be trustworthy.
Without using agents, CWPP provides risk mitigation and insight into cloud workloads spanning VMs, containers, and serverless activities. It performs scans of workloads to look for vulnerabilities, secrets, malware, and secure setups. CWPP also supports the detection of workload vulnerabilities and misconfigurations during CI/CD pipelines. In order to improve data through agentless visibility and risk minimization, CWPP uses a lightweight agent as the last line of defense for real-time threat detection.
Additionally, the Cloud Workload Protection platform performs actions like;
- System hardening: Using restricted configurations as a preventive measure, protecting Linux systems or VM-based workloads running on top of the host by lowering its susceptibility surface.
- Network Security: Enforce network policies fundamental to Kubernetes, such as segmentation, and offer network traffic visualization all the way down to the container level.
- Incident response: Forensic analysis and incident response are available for Kubernetes and the containers it maintains even after removing the container.
#2. Cloud Detection and Response (CDR)
By offering sophisticated threat identification, incident response, and continuous monitoring capabilities especially created for cloud settings, Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) plays a crucial role in a CNAPP. To acquire real-time insight into cloud assets, configurations, and activities, CDR under CNAPP makes use of cloud-native security mechanisms, such as cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP) and cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools.
CDR assists in identifying indications of compromise (IOCs), abnormalities, and unusual activity, including; remote code execution, malware, crypto-mining, lateral movement, privilege escalation, and container escape, that may point to a security event or breach by continually monitoring and analyzing cloud logs, network traffic, and user behavior.
Rapid incident response is made possible by CDR once a potential threat or breach has been identified by offering automatic or guided reaction measures. It helps companies lessen the potential effect and mitigate further risks by facilitating control, investigation, and resolution of security incidents.
#3. Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM)
For Kubernetes components, KSPM automates security and compliance, giving complete insight into hosts, clusters, and containers. In order to provide contextual insights and prioritize issues, the system evaluates risks associated with vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, rights, secrets, and networking. Additionally, KSPM enables a shift-left strategy by spotting and mitigating Kubernetes security problems in the early stages of development.
Best Cloud Native Application Protection Platform
The following are the best CNAPP vendors with great CNAPP solutions to ensure the security of your cloud-based applications and workloads.
#1. Crowdstrike CNAPP (Crowdstrike Falcon Cloud security)
The best CNAPP currently available is CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security. This system satisfies all the requirements for a CNAPP platform and also includes some extra capabilities, such as a threat intelligence feed. The package particularly monitors AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform services, and hosted software.
Along with agentless choices for cloud application security, CrowdStrike provides a “1-Click XDR” feature that rapidly deploys the CrowdStrike Falcon agent to identify and secure unsecured cloud workloads. Organizations have complete visibility and maintenance capabilities thanks to the agent-based technology’s protection both before and during runtime. Organizations may safeguard their cloud infrastructure and applications using this adversary-focused methodology throughout the CI/CD process.
#2. Prisma Cloud
Full security stack defense is provided for cloud environments by Palo Alto Networks’ CNAPP technology; Prisma Cloud. The platform’s integrative approach helps security operations and DevOps teams collaborate and build safe cloud-native apps faster. The expanded and extensive cloud-native application protection features of Prisma Cloud CNAPP set it apart from competitors and make it simple for companies to protect serverless and containerized apps. For businesses looking for robust and proactive cloud-native application protection, this remains the best option.
#3. PingSafe
PingSafe is a versatile program that guards against, watches over, detects, and studies intrusions on cloud computing infrastructure. Among the many uses for the PingSafe CNAPP are penetration testing as an offensive security tool and vulnerability management as a management tool.
This cloud-based system examines every infrastructure connected to app and platform delivery, including Infrastructure as Code and application containers.
This system will regularly scan all of your cloud applications and systems. It can detect code injection and probing behavior. In order to return the system to its initial secure condition, it will implement fixes on code that has been modified by an attacker, taking away those new lines.
The tool will review infrastructure and code from previous attacks to find additional adjustments that can strengthen the system against similar attacks in the future. Any company that creates and maintains SaaS platforms and web apps for use by other businesses can use this package. Also, businesses that pay for those services, may find it helpful.
#4. Cyscale CNAPP
Cyscale CNAPP provides all-around visibility and control over your cloud environment. Helping businesses prioritize and solve security issues ensures the seamless integration of cloud infrastructure and application security.
This strong cloud-based application security platform offers multi-cloud support, comprehensive dashboards, and over 400 security controls, including extremely helpful integrations. Along with other things, it has automatic data security issue detection for multi-cloud systems.
Cyscale is interoperable with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud security environments and enables compliance with ISO 27001, PCI DSS, SOC 2, and NIST, as well as the ability to protect Alibaba Cloud accounts.
#5. Sysdig Secure
Overall, Sysdig Secure is the best for consolidated CDR and CNAPP capabilities.
Sysdig Secure uses the open-source Falco in both agent and agentless deployment modes to combine cloud detection and response (CDR) with cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP). This pairing provides visibility and connectivity across workloads, identities, cloud services, and third-party apps, enabling rapid cloud threat assessment. Sysdig Secure offers better Drift Control, live mapping, incident response, software supply chain monitoring, and identity threat detection.
Benefits of Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms
Organizations benefit from CNAPPs in a lot of ways. Some of these include:
- Enhanced Cloud Security: Fewer cloud misconfigurations reduce the probability of cybersecurity risks.
- Simplified compliance: automates security-related processes to cut down on human error and increase accuracy. It also assists organizations in meeting regulatory and compliance requirements.
- Real-time threat detection allows for quick response to hazards and influences decision-making by providing integrated and unique visibility of risks and precise information, as well as advanced threat detection capabilities in real-time.
- Operational efficiency: eliminates the need to run and manage several cloud security technologies, thereby lowering complexity and overhead by consolidating security controls and providing centralized management.
- Improved DevOps Collaboration: reduces the number of bug fixes and merge/pull requests by discovering misconfigurations and potential threats in the CI/CD pipeline phases. This results in an increase in the productivity of the developer and DevOps team.
What problems does a CNAPP solve?
A CNAPP addresses the industry’s need for modern cloud security monitoring, posture management, breach prevention, and control tools.
Benefits of CNAPP?
Some benefits of CNAPP include:
Reduce costs and operational complexity.
Comprehensive cloud and service coverage
Security at the speed of DevOps
How does CNAPP work?
CNAPPs simplify DevOps and DevSecOps team operations by combining multiple tools and skills.
What is Code to Cloud CNAPP?
A code-to-cloud CNAPP allows you to change or add cloud service providers, workload architectures, CI/CD pipelines, IDEs, and repositories without also having to onboard another vendor and deploy and learn an entirely new product.
Conclusion
Cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP) secure the development cycle of cloud-native apps from the initial phases of application development all the way through to the production environment. CNAPPs help security teams streamline management and compliance by providing full visibility into DevSecOps, configurations, access control, workloads, and vulnerabilities.
CNAPPs make it simpler for businesses that rely heavily on cloud-native programs and environments to safeguard these vital assets.
Finally, with CNAPP, enterprises can streamline processes, prioritize risks, integrate their cloud-native security tool sets, and improve their security posture.
