Imagine this: your business has just transitioned to cloud computing, abandoning legacy onsite infrastructure in favour of the cloud’s infinite scale and flexibility, just as millions of other businesses already have. For several months, everything is running smoothly, just as you were told it would.
However, one morning you get a spate of notifications telling you that there’s been a security breach. After a few hours of finding nothing but dead ends, you finally learn that a misconfigured security setting was to blame. As this all happens, customer trust erodes, expensive regulatory fines loom over your head, and your business’s various departments argue about whom to assign the blame.
You may think that your business is above all of this, but it only takes one serious breach to put that idea to the test. Given the recent escalation of cyberattacks against small- and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), you probably won’t have to wait long until such a scenario happens. Indeed, businesses that have just moved to the cloud are at an elevated risk due to the unfamiliar challenges your team will face. This is where a CNAPP (Cloud Native Application Protection Platform) can help.
A CNAPP is a unified security solution designed to protect cloud-native systems and applications throughout their entire lifecycle. Unlike the standalone security tools that protect older cloud systems, a CNAPP can provide coverage from development to deployment and beyond, preventing common scenarios involving misconfigurations, unauthorised backdoor access, and compliance violations. They also integrate multiple security capabilities across different cloud networks so that you and your IT team no longer have to hop through multiple dashboards to implement total online security.
Once you adopt a CNAPP, your business can enjoy greater visibility, better control, and total resilience in its cloud environments, wherever they might be. Let’s look into how CNAPP works and why adopting it can make a difference in your network’s security.
Misconfigurations are an especially common mistake in newly integrated cloud systems. Such blunders like setting cloud storage buckets to "public" instead of “private" can easily expose sensitive data to the internet.
CNAPP solutions often bundle in a cloud security posture management (CSPM) feature that continuously scans for misconfigurations, helping system administrators plug vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. These features can typically also scan all parts of a cloud network, including virtual machines, containers, and anything else that may present easy opportunities to attackers.
Many CNAPP solutions employ machine learning and behavioural analytics to automatically flag suspicious activities, triggering an automatic response if necessary. This simplifies the task of identifying and responding to threats, enabling IT teams to focus on other important areas without compromising security.
Poor access management can often lead to security breaches. This can be truer of newly configured cloud networks, where the administrators haven’t yet implemented strict policies.
In these networks, even low-level users can have more access than they need, leaving businesses vulnerable to insider attacks as well as external attacks that hijack the credentials of unwitting employees. A CNAPP can help you effectively implement zero trust and the principle of least privilege (PoLP) frameworks, ensuring that each app and user only has the permissions they need.
A CNAPP also incorporates microsegmentation, effectively limiting the potential damage an attacker can inflict. Even if a hacker accesses a part of the system, they will be blocked before they can go anywhere else. Additionally, CNAPPs also include cloud-native firewalls that can dynamically adapt to traffic patterns and automatically block potential threats before they can do any damage.
Cloud-native applications tend to go through development cycles, where new code is frequently deployed, sometimes multiple times a day. However, this speed can introduce security risks, particularly if undiscovered vulnerabilities make it past production. CNAPPs can integrate with development pipelines, shifting security right to the beginning of the development process and preventing vulnerabilities from posing a serious problem.
CNAPPs can also be set up to automate compliance by assessing cloud configurations against regulatory benchmarks. They can also generate real-time audit reports so that you can stay ahead of regulatory penalties.
CNAPPs encrypt data at rest, in transit, and during processing, preventing attackers from using any information they manage to steal. This helps with regulatory compliance and maintains the trust you’ve built with your customers and other direct stakeholders.
Operating multi-cloud or hybrid environments on platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud used to require multiple security suites and custom solutions that sometimes conflicted with each other. Adopting a CNAPP will afford you complete cross-cloud visibility and control from a single interface, vastly simplifying administration and avoiding data silos. If set up correctly, a CNAPP will guarantee a consistent security posture across multi-cloud and on-premise infrastructure.
As more businesses adopt cloud technologies, malicious actors are adapting their strategies to exploit common gaps in cloud systems. Other hurdles, such as compliance challenges and tool confusion, also complicate matters to create potential vulnerabilities in an emerging cloud network. A CNAPP solution alongside your new cloud investment helps you avoid these pitfalls, saving time while providing dependable end-to-end security.
Implementation and management of a CNAPP effectively isn’t always so straightforward, especially when you and your team are new to cloud-based networks. Having experienced cloud security specialists design and implement your CNAPP integrations should save your business valuable time, avoiding security gaps that hackers could exploit.
Don’t wait for a security breach to expose vulnerabilities in your cloud infrastructure. Contact the qualified experts at Network Edge today to assess your business and implement a CNAPP that’s perfectly matched to your business’s needs.
