Understanding Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
Graham Thompson · Tuesday, September 19th, 2023
Understanding Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, ensuring security across cloud-native applications is both a priority and a challenge for organizations. Enter Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP), a comprehensive solution designed specifically for the dynamic environment of cloud-native applications. In this blog, we’ll dive deep into what CNAPP is, why it matters, and how it’s reshaping the cloud security paradigm. We’ll also look into the limitations of CNAPP and compare it to Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM).
What is CNAPP?
Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is a term that describes solutions designed to secure applications built using cloud-native architectures. As organizations increasingly embrace cloud-native development methodologies, they require tools and platforms specifically designed to secure these applications. Traditional security solutions often fall short in addressing the unique challenges presented by cloud-native environments.
Why is CNAPP Important?
Dynamic Environments: Cloud-native applications are inherently dynamic, with components continuously created, altered, and destroyed. Traditional security solutions, which were designed for more static environments, often fall short in such scenarios.
Complex Architectures: With microservices, containers, and serverless functions, the architecture of cloud-native applications can be intricate. CNAPP provides visibility and protection across these multifaceted architectures.
Shift-Left Philosophy: The “shift-left” approach in DevOps emphasizes integrating security early in the software development life cycle. CNAPP supports this by integrating seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that security checks are automated and occur in the initial stages of application development.
Key Features of CNAPP
Continuous Security Monitoring: CNAPP offers real-time monitoring, ensuring that any malicious activity or vulnerabilities are instantly detected.
Comprehensive Visibility: Gain insights into every layer and component of your cloud-native application, from containers to code.
Threat Intelligence: Stay updated with the latest threat data and ensure that your application is always a step ahead of potential attackers.
Automated Policy Enforcement: Set up custom policies for your application and let CNAPP automatically enforce them, ensuring consistent security standards.
Integration with DevOps Tools: CNAPP tools can seamlessly integrate with popular DevOps tools, making it easier for developers and operations teams to incorporate security into their workflows.
Container Security: Since cloud-native applications often utilize containers, CNAPPs ensure that these containers are secure throughout their lifecycle. This includes vulnerability scanning of container images, runtime protection, and network segmentation.
Serverless Function Security: Cloud-native applications may use serverless functions, such as AWS Lambda or Azure Functions. CNAPPs provide security configurations, monitoring, and protections specific to these serverless compute environments.
Application Dependency Security: CNAPPs scan and monitor the libraries and dependencies used in the application for vulnerabilities, ensuring that no compromised components are in use.
Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP): CNAPPs can monitor applications in real-time for any malicious behavior and can actively block or redirect suspicious requests.
Compliance and Policy Enforcement: CNAPP solutions can ensure that cloud-native applications comply with various regulatory standards by enforcing specific security policies and providing detailed audit trails.
Benefits of Adopting CNAPP
Reduced Attack Surface: By continuously monitoring and enforcing security policies, CNAPP reduces the potential entry points for attackers.
Improved Compliance: With detailed visibility and logging capabilities, CNAPP can help organizations meet various compliance requirements related to data security and privacy.
Enhanced Developer Productivity: Developers can focus on building features without constantly worrying about security, as CNAPP automates many security processes and integrates them into the development pipeline.
Cost Savings: By preventing security breaches and reducing the need for manual security checks, CNAPP can lead to significant cost savings for organizations.
CNAPP Limitations
Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs) are a significant step forward in securing cloud-native applications. However, like all technologies, they come with certain limitations. Understanding these limitations is essential for organizations to deploy CNAPP effectively and complement it with other security measures as needed. Here are some of the potential limitations of CNAPP:
Maturity of Solutions: Since CNAPP is a relatively new field in comparison to traditional security solutions, some tools and platforms might not be as mature or comprehensive in their features. Organizations may encounter bugs, lack of support, or features that don’t completely meet their needs.
Integration Challenges: While CNAPPs aim to seamlessly integrate with the cloud-native ecosystem, there can still be challenges in integrating them with various CI/CD tools, container orchestration platforms, and cloud providers.
Performance Overhead: Runtime protections, especially features like Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP), can introduce performance overhead. This can be a concern for high-performance applications where even minimal latency can be problematic.
Complexity: Cloud-native architectures themselves are complex. Adding CNAPP tools can further increase the complexity of the environment, especially if the security team is not familiar with cloud-native principles.
False Positives/Negatives: No security solution is perfect. CNAPPs can sometimes generate false positives, leading to unnecessary alerts, or false negatives, potentially missing real threats.
Cost Implications: Deploying a full-fledged CNAPP solution can be costly. This includes the cost of the platform itself, as well as the associated training and operational costs.
Adaptability to Emerging Technologies: The cloud-native space is rapidly evolving with new technologies and methodologies emerging frequently. CNAPPs must constantly evolve to remain effective, and there can be gaps in protection as new technologies emerge and gain adoption.
Skill Gap: The successful deployment and operation of CNAPP require skills specific to cloud-native architectures and the CNAPP platform itself. Organizations may face challenges in finding or training personnel with the necessary expertise.
Limited Visibility Outside Cloud-Native Environments: CNAPPs are designed specifically for cloud-native applications. If an organization uses a mix of traditional, hybrid, and cloud-native architectures, they might need to deploy multiple security solutions to get complete coverage.
Reliance on Vendor: Choosing a CNAPP solution often ties an organization to a specific vendor. If the vendor fails to update or enhance their solution in line with emerging threats or technologies, organizations might find themselves at a disadvantage.
While CNAPPs offer a specialized and integrated approach to securing cloud-native applications, they are not a silver bullet. Organizations need to be aware of these limitations, continuously evaluate their security posture, and consider complementary security measures when necessary.
Difference Between CNAPP and CSPM
Both Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) are critical aspects of cloud security, but they address different areas and challenges within this landscape. Here’s a breakdown of the key differences between the two technologies:
As the above graphic shows, while both CSPM and CNAPP are designed for securing cloud environments, CSPM is more about the correct configuration and management of cloud resources, ensuring they’re set up securely and align with best practices. In contrast, CNAPP focuses on the lifecycle of cloud-native applications, ensuring they’re secure from development to runtime.
Given the distinctions, many organizations find value in leveraging both CSPM and CNAPP solutions in tandem to provide a holistic approach to cloud security.
Conclusion
As the world continues its shift towards cloud-native applications, the need for specialized security solutions like CNAPP becomes even more crucial. Whether you’re a developer, a security professional, or someone interested in cloud technology, understanding and integrating CNAPP into your workflows can pave the way for more secure, efficient, and compliant cloud-native applications.
