Traditional security solutions have found themselves outpaced by the intricate demands of multi-cloud strategies. The surge in cloud-based infrastructures ushered in complexity, leaving many prevailing security methods ill-equipped to shield sensitive data and systems from potential threats.

As organizations increasingly lean on multi-cloud setups, the urgency to establish more potent security measures becomes palpable, propelling a reexamination of current approaches to ensure robust defense against emerging risks. One way is to adopt a cloud native application protection platform, or CNAPP.

CNAPP is a comprehensive cybersecurity solution designed to safeguard cloud-native applications and microservices architectures. CNAPP combines advanced security technologies such as container security, runtime protection, vulnerability assessment and threat detection to ensure the security and integrity of applications across the entire software development lifecycle.

CNAPP also provides real-time monitoring, automated threat mitigation and compliance enforcement, enabling organizations to confidently deploy and manage applications in cloud-native ecosystems while effectively addressing the emerging security challenges associated with these environments.

CNAPPs demonstrate the capacity to consolidate the functionalities of various security tools, including cloud security posture management, cloud workload protection, cloud infrastructure entitlement management, network security and secure DevOps.

The Cloud Security Alliance, or CSA, known for its dedication to shaping secure cloud computing standards, certifications and practices, released findings of how organizations view CNAPP in its Cloud Native Application Protection Platform Survey Report.

Sponsored by Microsoft (News - Alert), the survey probes the adoption rates and challenges entailed in implementing CNAPPs, revealing their burgeoning significance as a security category. The survey underscores their ascendancy, largely attributed to the intricate nature of safeguarding multi-cloud environments comprehensively.

Amid the survey's notable revelations, it emerges that three-quarters of organizations are opting for CNAPPs to safeguard their multi-cloud ecosystems, and a majority have integrated or are planning to deploy CNAPPs in their cloud landscapes. The upswing in CNAPP adoption echoes the prevalence of multi-cloud strategies, with 84% of surveyed entities acknowledging the deployment of two or more cloud environments.

However, even as organizations embrace these innovative security solutions, a series of challenges persist across various domains.

Security teams grapple with the inundation of alerts, struggling to prioritize enhancements effectively – 32% of respondents express difficulty in this aspect, hampered by the avalanche of sometimes inaccurate information.

DevOps security, despite growing recognition, confronts shortages in expertise, automation and actionable insights. Network security stands as a relatively mature implementation, yet it grapples with the complex realm of threat detection. Cloud workload protection also raises concerns around incident response, encompassing people, processes and technology.

Additionally, cloud infrastructure entitlement management underscores the paramount importance of mitigating misconfigurations of permissions, a challenge that poses potential vulnerabilities and data breaches.

“It’s clear that today’s multi-cloud environments are increasingly complex, and enterprises must find ways to comprehensively address their security posture,” said Hillary Baron, lead author and senior technical director for research, Cloud Security Alliance.

The survey was conducted in April 2023. Sponsors are CSA Corporate Members who support the research project’s findings but have no added influence on the content development or editing rights of CSA research.