Rushing to embrace cloud computing can sometimes feel like running off the edge of a cliff. Data breaches, compliance violations, and overburdened teams – all disturbing trends these days – are all too common, especially when you consider that cloud computing was supposed to make everything simpler, more efficient, and more straightforward.
But this is not surprising given the inherent complexity and fluidity of cloud computing. Traditional security models focused on protecting the data center perimeter are struggling to keep up, and we need a completely new approach to governing the dynamic, distributed environments that now power our business infrastructure.
This brings us to an emerging product category that promises to be a complete game changer – the Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP). CNAPP aims to provide integrated visibility, security, and governance across the full spectrum of cloud environments by consolidating disparate, often unrelated tools into a unified control plane. The idea is that this will help organizations overcome many of their most pressing cloud management problems (five of which we’ll cover in this post).
1- Fragmented security tools
Many companies today rely on a suite of cloud security tools—cloud access security brokers, cloud workload protection platforms, posture verification tools—the list goes on. Each addresses a narrow slice of visibility.
Trying to weave ideas from these disparate products together is (mostly) a futile endeavor. This fragmented approach also leads to proliferation of tools, forgotten subscriptions, and a lot of operational headaches.
CNAPP solutions provide an integrated suite of security capabilities on a single, unified platform. We’re talking cloud security posture management, cloud workloads, identity and access governance, and runtime application protection.
With all key controls under one roof, you can finally have a comprehensive view of identities, permissions, activities, assets, and threats across your cloud environments. No more trying to piece together insights from separate sources. CNAPP integration also greatly simplifies management and reduces the burden on IT and security teams. One platform to secure your clouds—who doesn’t want that?
2- Lack of clear visibility across cloud environments
Trying to manage security consistently across on-premises, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS environments is extremely difficult. The sheer diversity of infrastructure and services can quickly turn your cloud footprint into a massive surveillance point.
This is where the powerful CNAPP solution comes in to ease a world of pain. CNAPP acts as a cloud-native control plane, applying consistent oversight across the entire multi-cloud hybrid cloud. The platform automatically discovers cloud accounts, resources, services, identities, and permissions across the stack. Meanwhile, centralized data ingestion and correlation helps detect suspicious activity patterns across environments.
With comprehensive visibility and control through the lens of CNAPP, you can finally implement unified governance, security, and compliance across all your cloud infrastructure and applications. No more cloud security vulnerabilities due to fragmented visibility. Just one platform that connects all the dots across your cloud ecosystem.
3- Difficulty in managing incorrect cloud configurations
Cloud configuration errors have become a major security vulnerability. Whether it’s bugs like an exposed S3 bucket, flawed access controls, or unpatched resources, there are plenty of vulnerabilities that present an open invitation to attackers.
This is where CNAPP solutions can add value. By continuously monitoring cloud resources against best practice frameworks, they can automatically detect risky settings and permissions. If an S3 bucket permission is overly permissive, encryption is disabled, or a cloud resource is not patched, CNAPP raises alerts and can trigger corrective workflows.
This proactively reduces the attack surface rather than waiting for an incident to happen. Organizations can avoid data leaks and maintain tighter compliance controls. And instead of rushing to shut down cloud environments after seeing an attack pattern in the logs, the door is never left open in the first place. This eliminates the frustration of chasing down countless configuration changes and allows teams to stay one step ahead of attackers.
4 – Protecting cloud-native workloads
Securing today’s cloud workloads brings with it more than just security challenges. Think about protecting containers, Kubernetes, serverless platforms, service-oriented mesh architectures—the whole stack. These environments can evolve and change very quickly. Resources disappear as quickly as they appear.
CNAPPs protect cloud native workloads through deep integration with native orchestration tools. Built-in security, microservices protection, secrets management, and automated scanning—all designed specifically for containerless and serverless environments.
The key advantage here is that CNAPPs understand cloud-native patterns. They are designed to move at the same speed as Kubernetes, secure ephemeral infrastructure, and allow policies to flow seamlessly from development to production.
5- Overburdened IT teams
Understaffed IT and security teams struggle to manually piece together cloud oversight operations using disjointed tools. Getting bogged down in repetitive tasks like log analysis, fault-protection configurations, and firefighting incidents leaves little time for more valuable work.
What’s even worse is that most security tools generate an overwhelming number of alerts, many of which turn out to be false positives. As such, 32% of organizations reportedly struggle to decide which security improvements to prioritize, and are simply bombarded with incorrect information from alerts.
CNAPP delivers intelligent automation to ease routine responsibilities. Integration with infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools embeds security early in the onboarding process. Machine learning algorithms autonomously identify behaviors, detect threats, and stop attacks in progress. With less clutter to manage, IT staff can refocus on business-oriented initiatives.
last word
As we have seen, CNAPPs have tremendous potential to unify and simplify cloud management by bringing together end-to-end visibility, security, and governance under one roof. There is no longer a need to assemble a set of siloed tools or juggle the endless complexities of the cloud.
However, not all CNAPP solutions are created equal. The most robust platforms span entire cloud stacks—including IaaS, PaaS, containers, functions, and data. Look for rich integration capabilities that unify signals from all layers of the stack. Prioritize automated remediation that addresses threats across environments in real time.
Companies that implement a comprehensive CNAPP system position themselves to realize game-changing benefits. They gain centralized visibility to accelerate innovation cycles while mitigating risk. With simplified cloud governance, they confidently scale their footprint and workloads. And freed from the endless complexity of the platform, their teams can focus less on keeping the lights on and more on strategic efforts that create business value.
