Beyond Traditional Security

Uploaded on 2023-08-15 in TECHNOLOGY--Developments, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-IT & Telecoms

Brought to you by Renelis Mulyandari

Cloud computing adoption continues to grow, with one survey showing the technology’s significant impact on businesses and other areas of society. The multi-cloud strategy is particularly becoming the leading operating model for businesses. Around 84 percent of businesses surveyed said they prefer the multi-cloud setup while some 38 percent said that they were set to adopt it in the next twelve months.

The accelerated adoption of cloud technology is generally a welcome development. However, as organizations shift to cloud-native architectures, they start encountering challenges particularly when it comes to cybersecurity.

Many of the organizations surveyed said that they expected exacerbated cybersecurity challenges mainly because of the shortage of cloud computing skills, inconsistent workflows, unfamiliar operations, and the usual difficulties encountered in using a new technology.

The struggle to keep up with the security challenges of embracing cloud computing is not without a viable solution, though. As traditional security approaches fail to keep up with cloud-targeted threats, new solutions have emerged, and one of the most notable ones is Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP).

Ensuring Cloud-Native Security

As the name suggests, CNAPP focuses on providing a cloud-native security model to address the specific challenges that come with cloud adoption and provide a comprehensive lifecycle approach to app security instead of the traditional strategy of employing a patchwork of solutions.

CNAPP makes this possible by bringing together three cloud-directed security solutions, namely Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), and Cloud Service Network Security (CSNS). These three cyber defense approaches are unified under a single platform that holistically secures applications at different stages of their life cycles.

Organizations tend to use various disjointed security tools as they build their security posture. Over time, they deploy different tools from different vendors. This used to work well enough, but with the changes in the cyber threat landscape, it is becoming clear that cloud-native defense is a must. The use of disjointed solutions inevitably results in security visibility and integration gaps. Many of the existing security tools are also incapable of competently detecting and responding to threats in cloud workloads and multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
CNAPP provides a tried and tested way to consolidate security tools and platforms. It also enables DevSecOps teams to treat security as a continuum that extends to different operations and security teams. Some security pundits describe it as the “logical evolution” for the shift-left security movement.

CNAPP is particularly effective in enhancing cloud app security in the following areas:

Contextualized Security Information

Security monitoring and observability tools are not new. Many already exist to facilitate security visibility for organizations that use cloud resources. However, CNAPP is better than these existing solutions because of its contextualization of security information. It is capable of providing end-to-end visibility across an organization’s entire app infrastructure. It does not only collect details about possible attack surfaces. It also provides granular details on vital concerns such as configurations, user identities, and technology stacks. Additionally, it helps prioritize security alerts to ensure timely responses.

End-to-End Cloud-Native Security Integration

One of the highlight features of Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms is the integration of end-to-end cloud native security throughout the different workloads of an organization. It can perform code and commit, a function in CSPM that performs Infrastructure-as-Code and third-party library scanning. It also undertakes container image assurance as well as “deployment and beyond,” which is a CWPP function used that provides Kubernetes runtime assurance and virtual machine defense. Also, CNAPP can integrate posture management and entity behavior analytics as well as API protection and micro-segmentation.

DevSecOps Integration

CNAPP is also highly compatible with the DevSecOps workflow, as it promotes a culture of security with its security-conscious application development process. CNAPP helps systematize automated security testing, continuous threat monitoring, and meticulous vulnerability scanning all throughout the application development lifecycle.

Real-Time Threat Monitoring & Response

With its ability to unify different cybersecurity approaches and leverage machine learning and advanced analytics, CNAPP helps security teams gain real-time visibility into cloud apps and their interactions. It makes it easy to detect suspicious activities or spot anomalies and potentially harmful actions, something traditional solutions are incapable of doing. Consequently, this real-time threat monitoring function expedites incident response to contain an attack and apply mitigation and remediation measures with a sense of urgency.

Scalability, Adaptability & Flexibility

Another important benefit of CNAPP is its agile and scalable design. It works across different platforms and environments, including dynamic cloud environments. Of note, CNAPP can auto-scale alongside the fluctuating system demands and changing workloads to consistently secure applications without significant impact on app performance. This flexibility is especially desired by modern organizations that rely on cloud-native architectures, because of their need for a security solution that can correspondingly scale up or down in response to changing demand.

Security For Microservices

CNAPP is built to work with a microservices architecture, which has become popular among cloud-native applications nowadays. CNAPP affords granular control over security tools at the microservice level. This provides the advantage of reducing attack surfaces while constraining the ability of threat actors to conduct lateral movement attacks. This attention to microservice security maximizes cloud defense especially against complex vulnerabilities and threats such as container escapes, container-to-host attacks, and cloud metadata exploitation.

Cloud-Aware Policy Enforcement

CNAPP can take advantage of cloud-native APIs and web services to implement security policies efficiently. Also, it can automatically adapt to the security capabilities of a cloud service provider. Not many pay rigorous attention to the security capabilities of a cloud service provider. As such, some organizations implement security rules that are not in line with the native controls of the cloud provider, which can lead to security vulnerabilities. CNAPP addresses the confusion and tones down the complexity of employing various security solutions.

In Conclusion

This may sound hackneyed but traditional security approaches are indeed no longer enough to provide effective cyber defense, especially in view of the more prominent use of cloud environments. CNAPP provides one of the most viable solutions to enhance app security in the modern setting.

Adopting this cybersecurity approach ensures that organizations get comprehensive security visibility, scalability, flexibility, and integration. These are essential in strengthening cloud application security and in eliminating fears over the adoption of efficiency-boosting cloud-native architectures.

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