Over the last few years, an increasing number of companies have started using the cloud. The truth is that the cloud offers many benefits, including scalability, reduced costs, and an overall feeling of continuity. However, the cloud is not-risk free, as it has inherent security threats and vulnerabilities. This is where solutions like CNAPPs come in.
Essentially, a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) is a software solution that simplifies security monitoring for your cloud by providing an all-in-one solution for its security. CNAPPs have become more popular in the last few years, as they offer features like application hardening, event logging, and security policy enforcement. Without a CNAPP solution, you’d have to manually integrate multiple solutions like a CSPM and a CIEM and manage them simultaneously. This is difficult, as having to switch between these platforms can be quite time-consuming and unproductive.
Now, with the basics out of the way, let’s see the key components of a CNAPP solution.
Key Components of CNAPP Solutions
A typical CNAPP solution will have the following features and sub-solutions integrated in it:
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
CSPM is a key component of any CNAPP solution. It’s a cloud-based security service that continuously assesses the security posture of your cloud, whether it’s an AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud environment. CSPM provides you with visibility into your cloud environment so that you can identify and remediate security issues quickly.
Infrastructure-as-Code Scanning (IAC)
Infrastructure scanning is also an important feature of a CNAPP solution, as it will scan your cloud environment for vulnerabilities and compliance issues. This will give you visibility into your infrastructure so that you can quickly identify and fix any security issues before they become a problem.
Cloud Service Network Security (CSNS)
CSNS is a cloud-based security service that protects your network from attacks. It uses a combination of firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS), and web application firewalls (WAFs) to protect your network. Instead of having to integrate such a service manually for your cloud, a CNAPP solution will have it as a part of the package, ensuring that you don’t have to switch to different solutions for security.
Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
CIEM is a cloud-based security service that helps you manage access to your cloud resources. It provides you with fine-grained control over who can access what resources in your cloud environment. This is important because it helps you prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data and systems.
Why Is a CNAPP Solution Needed?
Now that we’ve understood the features and key components of a CNAPP solution, let’s go over the benefits you can expect from using such a solution.
Improved Security of The Cloud
Even though it’s the most obvious benefit of using a CNAPP solution, security is also the most significant one. The truth is that the cloud is inherently insecure. If you don’t take precautions while configuring your cloud, it could have many security threats and vulnerabilities with it.
Since a CNAPP solution provides a variety of security-related features, it helps address the majority of threats and vulnerabilities within the cloud, depending on your cloud security needs.
Better Visibility
A CNAPP solution provides you with better visibility into your cloud environment. With the help of features like infrastructure scanning and event logging, you can quickly identify and fix any security issues in your cloud environment. When it comes to cloud security, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure, which is why having clear visibility of your infrastructure can help.
Risk Quantification
A CNAPP solution can help you quantify the risks in your cloud environment so that you can make informed decisions about your security strategy. Not all risks and vulnerabilities are equal, as some are of higher priority. With the help of a CNAPP solution, you can quickly identify and prioritize the vulnerabilities in your cloud environment.
Improved Compliance
If you’re using the cloud for business purposes, then you need to make sure that you’re compliant with the relevant regulations. A CNAPP solution can help you with this by providing features like infrastructure scanning and event logging. Thanks to these features, you can quickly identify and fix any compliance issues in your cloud environment.
Reduced Costs
By using a CNAPP solution, you can reduce the costs associated with your cloud security. This is because a CNAPP solution provides a cost-effective way to secure your cloud environment. With just one solution, you’ll have security posture management, infrastructure scanning, cloud service network security, and more, This would otherwise cost you a lot more if you were to purchase each of these services separately.
Conclusion
All in all, we think that a CNAPP solution will be beneficial to almost every cloud-based company, as it offers a lot of value for its price. Since this is an incredibly comprehensive tool, you’ll have multiple solutions integrated together, which address the entire cloud. This will also lead to improved productivity of the DevOps and DevSecOps teams, as they would not have to worry about using different tools for different purposes.
