5 Key Insights from the Gartner® Market Guide for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)

Last updated at Mon, 19 Aug 2024 15:25:01 GMT

As the cloud landscape continues to evolve, organizations face the growing challenge of securing their cloud-native applications. We feel the 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) provides invaluable insights into the latest trends and technologies that are reshaping how companies protect their digital assets. Below, we highlight five key takeaways from the report to help you navigate the ever-changing cloud security ecosystem.

Key takeaway 1: The expanding attack surface

The attack surface of cloud-native applications is widening, with attackers increasingly targeting runtime environments, networks, compute, storage, identities, and permissions. Misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in APIs and the software supply chain are also primary targets for cybercriminals.

According to Gartner: "CNAPP offerings bring together multiple disparate security and protection capabilities into a single platform focused on identifying and prioritizing excessive risk of the entire cloud-native application and its associated infrastructure."

This comprehensive approach allows organizations to tackle threats head-on and maintain a secure cloud environment.

Key takeaway 2: Evolving developer responsibilities

Developers are taking on more responsibility for security as organizations embrace DevOps and shift left in their security practices. The need for advanced tools that address vulnerabilities and deploy infrastructure as code has become crucial.

The report highlights: "Proactively identifying and prioritizing risks during development, while providing developers with adequate context, is essential due to developers perceiving security as an obstacle."

To support this shift, organizations should look for CNAPP solutions that integrate seamlessly with development processes, offering full life cycle visibility and protection.

Key takeaway 3: The importance of contextual risk analysis

Security teams must prioritize tasks and provide developers with the context needed to remediate issues quickly. Without this context, developers can become overwhelmed by alerts, leading to decreased productivity and potentially leaving vulnerabilities unaddressed.

The research suggests: "Security leaders should leverage CNAPP to strengthen defenses against attacks on network, compute, storage, identities, permissions, APIs, and the software supply chain, thereby mitigating potential risks and safeguarding critical assets."

A strong CNAPP platform helps security teams understand the broader context of threats, making it easier to prioritize and address the most pressing issues.

Key takeaway 4: Integration and consolidation are key

The CNAPP market has experienced significant growth and consolidation, with a handful of vendors offering comprehensive platforms that integrate security across development and operations.

We believe the report emphasizes the benefits of consolidation: "CNAPP reduces operational complexity through consolidation of vendors, consoles, policies, and contracts, thereby reducing the chances of misconfiguration or mistakes."

Organizations are moving toward unified solutions that offer consistent security policies across all application components, from code to containers to virtual machines. This integration not only simplifies management but also enhances security posture across cloud environments.

Key takeaway 5: Visualizing interconnected relationships

Understanding the relationships between various components of cloud-native applications is crucial for effective security. CNAPPs should leverage graph database technology to map these interconnected relationships, providing a visual representation of how resources, identities, and application components interact.

The report states: "A deep understanding of the relationships between an application’s elements (VMs, containers, service functions and storage), security posture, permissions, and connectivity, typically enabled by underlying graph database technology."

This visualization is more than just a nice-to-have; it is becoming an expected feature. By using graph technology, CNAPP platforms can show potential paths for attackers to move laterally within an environment, enabling security teams to prioritize risks more effectively and understand the potential blast radius of a compromise. Rapid7's latest Exposure Command, for example, incorporates this advanced graph visualization technology and attack path analysis, helping teams gain deeper insights into their security posture and enhance their threat mitigation strategies.

Conclusion: Navigating the cloud security landscape

Securing cloud-native applications requires a comprehensive and integrated approach that addresses risks throughout the development and production lifecycle. We feel the Gartner Market Guide for CNAPPs highlights the importance of selecting solutions that offer robust security features, seamless integration, and actionable insights to help organizations protect their digital assets effectively.

Download the full Gartner Market Guide for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms to explore how CNAPPs can enhance your cloud security strategy and keep your applications safe from emerging threats.