What is CNAPP? Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform Explained

Increasingly complex cloud security threats and risks have led to a rise in cloud security tooling in recent years. However, increased tooling has also led to increased costs and manpower, leading many organizations to shift toward tool consolidation. In this article, we will dive into the rise of cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs), the role they play in tool consolidation, and key features to consider when choosing a CNAPP.

What is a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)?

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs) are a unified approach to protecting cloud-native infrastructure and applications that consolidate multiple individual solutions under a single umbrella. CNAPPs do a lot, integrating both proactive and reactive security capabilities to protect cloud-native infrastructure and applications, including:

• Identity management
• Threat detection and response
• Cloud security posture management
• Risk detection and prioritization
• Discovery and protection of APIs

As a comprehensive cloud security platform, CNAPP integrates numerous capabilities that were previously found in cloud security posture management (CSPM), cloud detection and response (CDR), cloud workload protection (CWPP), vulnerability management, identity security (CIEM), and API security tools.

CNAPP platforms provide ongoing security monitoring throughout the development lifecycle for cloud-native technologies like APIs, microservices, containers, and service meshes. 

With a CNAPP solution, security teams prioritized risk management, full visibility across a cloud ecosystem, and collaboration between development, security, and operations teams (DevSecOps), with automatic policy enforcement and scanning built for the cloud.

CNAPP Benefits for Cloud Security Challenges

CNAPP dominates conversations about cybersecurity as a powerhouse that takes runtime security seriously while remaining true to its promise to offer protection at the production stage. 

The CNAPP market is expected to more than double in the coming years, growing from $7.8 billion in 2022 to $19.3 billion by 2027. That could be due to an appetite for consolidating the cloud security functions of CSPM and CWPP solutions, estimated to increase from 25% in 2022 of enterprises to 60%.

 

The popularity stems from what CNAPP does well. The key benefits of CNAPP benefits stem from the imperative to combine functions from app development through deployment. Here are the perks of such an approach:

CNAPP tames the chaos with a holistic strategy

By unifying diverse security tools such as CSPM, CWPP, and CIEM into a single platform, companies benefit from an integrated security approach that reduces security silos and offers seamless visibility and controls across workloads, containers, and serverless functions.

By integrating these tools, cybersecurity teams can:

• Streamline monitoring, configuration, and updating of their security infrastructure
• Troubleshoot issues with less manual effort
• Allocate resources more effectively

CNAPP highlights critical threats to reduce breach risk

Monitoring across cloud environments and the development lifecycle helps to reduce false positives and makes identifying true threats easier to identify and remediate.

Behavior analysis is not exclusive to CNAPP, but CNAPPs offer significant advantages by integrating data from multiple components and contextualizing threats using more data for more accurate filtering. What’s happening right now in your environment? That’s an important part of how the most advanced CNAPPs can focus on the biggest threats so you’re not swimming in non-critical alerts.

CNAPP consolidates tools for cost efficiency

Consolidating tools means fewer moving parts and lower costs. Not only does CNAPP reduce “tool creep,” but the holistic approach also streamlines security operations.

Cost savings are quantifiable in terms of software spend and daily operational costs, but related cost efficiencies also favor CNAPP solutions:

• Improved collaboration DevOps and security teams gain a common platform to manage security throughout the CI/CD pipeline.
• Streamlined compliance unify controls and reporting for streamlined compliance management.
• Contextualizing alerts allowing teams to prioritize critical risks and threats based on real environmental variables.

CNAPP accelerates the development and deployment cycle

Through integration with development tools and automated security checks, CNAPP makes it possible to correlate runtime misconfigurations and vulnerabilities with CI/CD context, helping teams fix problems at the source and accelerate development timelines.

CNAPP’s DevSecOps approach means integration with CI/CD pipelines, as well as using machine learning and behavior analytics for threat detection and real-time detection of complex threats at runtime. Overall, the consolidated platform approach of a CNAPP reduces friction as teams can incorporate security requirements seamlessly into existing workflows.

How Do CNAPP Tools Work to Secure the Cloud Environment? 

According to Gartner, CNAPP protects cloud-native applications across their lifecycle, encompassing both applications and infrastructure. While many view CNAPP as a combination of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP), it provides additional essential functionalities.

• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): The CSPM component is crucial for identifying and remediating misconfigurations and compliance issues within cloud infrastructures. It handles:
  • Misconfiguration and unencrypted storage detection
  • Policy enforcement
  • Compliance monitoring
  • Drift detection
• Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP): The CWPP features protect cloud workloads by scanning for vulnerabilities and malware. Core features include:
  • Container security
  • Serverless security
  • Virtual machine (VM) protection
  • Workload isolation and segmentation

While the hybrid CSPM and CWPP definition captures essential aspects, modern CNAPPs extend their capabilities significantly to include: 

• Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM): The CIEM governs identities, permissions, and access to provide more granular management of cloud environments. 
• End-to-end visibility: By automating regulatory audits and reporting, comprehensive visibility helps to ensure compliance across various frameworks. 
• DevSecOps integration: Workflows are structured to incorporate security practices into the development pipeline, fostering collaboration across the DevSecOps teams.

Advanced CNAPP platforms can also use machine learning to contextualize cloud activities, identify abnormal behavior, and prioritize threats based on risk levels. Additional capabilities may include: 

• API security
• Infrastructure as code (IaC) scanning
• Kubernetes security posture management (KSPM)
• Cloud detection and response (CDR) 

As CNAPPs evolve, they continue to incorporate new functionalities, becoming increasingly indispensable to the cloud security landscape, but also burdened with solving all things for all teams, even as use cases expand to multiple teams and priorities. The evolution mirrors that of EWP, CWPP, and CDR as they incorporated new functions, particularly related to cloud security.

CNAPP is not the only cloud security tool. How can you be sure it’s the right one for your overall security posture, given your cloud computing needs?

CNAPP vs Stand-Alone Security Tools

CNAPPs are all-in-one platforms that integrate security across the cloud environment. Because CNAPP grew out of CSPM and CWPP functions, some companies may opt to implement either of these solutions individually instead.

The “best-of-breed” approach to cloud-native security rejects the unified format of CNAPPs in favor of aligned individual tools.

For instance, best-of-breed security solutions may be specifically designed to address unique needs, such as a specific threat landscape or legacy system compatibility. They may be more streamlined and meet one team’s use cases better than a larger software product. While best-of-breed security can provide outstanding coverage in specialty areas, this approach can’t offer the same unified visibility of a CNAPP, and their patchwork of security functions may leave security gaps.

This table explains why a modern company might choose a CNAPP platform vs. a best-of-breed solution.

Platform	CNAPP Use Case	Best-of-Breed Use Case
CNAPP (Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform)	Use CNAPP for comprehensive security across development, deployment, and runtime.	Best-of-breed isn’t applicable, as CNAPP itself is a unified approach.
CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platform)	Use CNAPP for broad workload security across the full lifecycle of cloud-native applications, combining infrastructure and workload protection.	Use a best-of-breed CWPP when there is a need for specialized workload protection (e.g., container or Kubernetes security) without requiring broader cloud infrastructure visibility.
CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management)	Use CNAPP to provide both posture management and workload protection	Use a best-of-breed CSPM to focus on cloud configuration and compliance management without workload protection or other runtime capabilities.
CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker)	Use CNAPP to secure access at the infrastructure and workload levels, but with less focus on cloud SaaS app monitoring than CASB.	Use best-of-breed CASB for securing SaaS applications, data access control, and monitoring across 3rd-party cloud services.
DSPM (Data Security Posture Management)	Use CNAPP for some data security, but especially to secure workloads and applications.	Use best-of-breed DSPM for data governance and data security focused directly on identifying and protecting sensitive data across cloud storage and databases.
SIEM (Security Information and Event Management)	Use CNAPP for broad cloud-native security and real-time visibility across workloads and infrastructure without deep log management.	Use best-of-breed SIEM for centralized log management, advanced threat detection, and forensics.
CIEM (Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management)	Use CNAPP as part of a broad cloud-native security strategy with identity and access management to protect workloads and reduce risks from over-privileged access.	Use a best-of-breed CIEM for dedicated cloud identity governance and role management, especially for large, complex IAM environments in multi-cloud.
SASE (Secure Access Service Edge)	Use CNAPP for internal cloud-native security and workloads, not edge access.	Use Best-of-breed SASE to prioritize secure access to distributed resources that need network, edge, and remote user protection.
ASPM (Application Security Posture Management)	Use CNAPP for securing cloud-native applications and infrastructure in one platform during the development, deployment, and runtime stages.	Use best-of-breed ASPM for deep application security posture and vulnerability detection, including code repositories, libraries, and 3rd-party dependencies.

CNAPP customers emerge victorious when CNAPP can address all use cases and users without bloat. That can be a challenge, as DevOps teams and compliance security operations analysts must be able to use CNAPP equally. After all, CNAPP doesn’t just consolidate tools, it consolidates teams. The best tools simplify the large umber of functions and features of a CNAPP.

Upwind Simplifies End-to-End Cloud Security

CNAPP is a first line of defense against security threats for organizations that used to split their attention between services, collate disorganized information, and find patterns in disparate reports, all the while wrestling with multiple tools.

Upwind offers a unified CNAPP that protects cloud configurations, data, API, and identity security in one simple platform. Schedule a demo to see how.

FAQ

What about CNAP?

CNAP shares a similar acronym to CNAPP, but the two are distinct. CNAP refers to “Certified Network Associate Program,” a certification program in network security. It is designed for IT professionals or network administrators, not security or development teams.

What is the difference between CNAPP and SASE?

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and CNAPP are both platforms that help companies protect business functions and data in the cloud. However, SASE is a network security framework with the goal of securing access to the cloud and internal networks.

CNAPP, on the other hand, is focused on application and asset security in cloud environments and is designed for DevSecOps teams, not network and security teams.

Is CASB part of CNAPP?

No, cloud access security broker (CASB) acts as an intermediary for accessing cloud services and does not assess the security applications developed, deployed, and running in the cloud. CASB shares some functions with CNAPP, like providing visibility, identifying threats, keeping cloud usage compliant, and protecting sensitive data.

What type of security solution is CNAPP?

CNAPP is a cloud security solution that specifically falls within the cloud-native security category. Other products in this category include CSPM, CWPP, runtime threat protection platforms, and infrastructure as code (IaC) security solutions.

What are the main components of a CNAPP solution?

A typical CNAPP solution includes three main components: Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), and often Infrastructure as Code (IaC) protection. IaC helps secure increasing workloads operating in the cloud, allowing for provisioning as part of the deployment process, increasing automation and scalability.