15 CNAPP Best Practices to Implement Today

Summary

“Cloud-Native Application Protection (CNAPP) is a category of security solutions that unify the tools, technologies and practices for securing the network and infrastructure of cloud-native applications. Cloud-native application security complements CNAPP in the SDLC.”

CNAPP is a consolidated solution for network and infrastructure protection of cloud-native applications.CNAPP enhances visibility and control and boosts operational efficiency, helping organizations stay ahead of evolving threats in their cloud architectures. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into CNAPP’s key functionalities and provide 15 best practices for implementation. In the end, we’ll explain how to complement CNAPP with cloud-native application security, to ensure application security early in the SDLC.

What is CNAPP?

Cloud-Native Application Protection (CNAPP) is a category of security solutions that unify the tools, technologies and practices for securing the network and infrastructure of cloud-native applications. While the cloud offers dynamic scalability to enterprises, it also introduces new, complex security challenges. By unifying workload and runtime cloud security tools into a single, comprehensive platform, CNAPP improves operational efficiency, visibility and control, which helps enterprises strengthen their cloud architecture’s security posture.

Key functionalities of the holistic approach that is unified in CNAPP include:

• Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) – Protecting workloads across virtual machines, containers and serverless functions from threats and vulnerabilities.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM) – Ensuring resource access is restricted to authorized users and services, following the principle of least privilege. This can be extended to Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), which manages identities across the cloud.
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) – Maintaining compliance with security policies and regulations through continuous monitoring and configuration scanning of cloud resources.
• Runtime Container Security – Providing specialized security measures for container environments in runtime, including monitoring and managing vulnerabilities during operation.

[image suggestion – a circle that says CNAPP in the middle and the capabilities it contains listed around it]

CNAPP Benefits

Here are the key benefits of implementing a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP):

• Runtime Security Coverage – CNAPPs provide runtime and workload security for cloud-native applications.
• Unified Security Framework – CNAPPs integrate multiple security tools and functions into a single, cohesive platform. This unified approach eliminates the need to manage multiple, siloed tools, reducing friction and complexity, and streamlining security operations.
• Enhanced Visibility and Contextualized Insights – CNAPPs offer visibility into cloud-native environments, providing context-aware insights, instead of merely identifying isolated security events.
• Automated Threat Detection and Response – CNAPPs provide automated mechanisms for detecting and responding to threats in real-time. This automation helps to quickly mitigate risks without the need for manual intervention, reducing the potential damage from security incidents and improving overall response times.
• Improved Compliance Management – CNAPPs assist organizations in maintaining compliance with industry standards and regulations by continuously monitoring for compliance-related issues and providing automated checks and remediation suggestions. This continuous monitoring simplifies audits and reduces the legal risk of non-compliance.
• Scalability and Flexibility – CNAPP can be used across multi-cloud and hybrid environments, regardless of the underlying cloud provider. This ensures consistent security even for organizations with complex cloud strategies.

15 CNAPP Best Practices

CNAPP sounds great in theory, but how can organizations get started?To implement CNAPP, it’s recommended to follow these best practices:

1. Maintain an Updated Cloud Inventory

Regularly update your inventory of cloud assets, including virtual machines, containers, serverless functions, storage buckets and databases. Use automated discovery tools that integrate with cloud service providers to ensure real-time inventory updates. This ensures that you have a fresh view of all resources in use, which is the first step to protecting them. You can’t protect what you can’t see.

2. Map Asset Relationships

Map out the relationships and dependencies between different assets, such as applications, databases and network components. Cloud environments are complicated and ephemeral. By understanding the interdependencies, you can identify potential attack paths and the impact of potential vulnerabilities. This will help you prioritize security controls and practices. In case of an attack, the mapping will help with incident response.

3. Implement the Principle of Least Privilege

Restrict user and application permissions to resources, systems and components to the minimum level necessary to perform their functions.

Regularly review and update access policies, and implement automated mechanisms to revoke unnecessary permissions. This reduces the potential damage that can be caused by compromised accounts or insider threats.

4. Implement ZTNA

On the heels of #3, adopt a Zero Trust approach to ensure that no user or device, internal or external, is trusted by default. Instead, every access request to runtime environments is authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated. This practice minimizes the attack surface and limits the impact of any potential breach by preventing lateral movement within the network.

5. Deploy Workload Segmentation

Isolate sensitive workloads and enforce strict communication policies between segments.

This will help contain potential breaches and limit lateral movement to sensitive data or critical systems.

6. Secure Kubernetes

Implement a multi-layered approach to protect the Kubernetes container orchestration environment from potential threats. T

his includes securing the Kubernetes API server with strong authentication and authorization mechanisms, regularly applying patches and updates to all components, and controlling access through RBAC.

In addition, network policies should be enforced to limit communication between pods and admission controllers can be configured to enforce security policies, such as preventing the use of privileged containers.

7. Encrypt Data at Rest and in Transit

Encrypt sensitive data using industry-standard encryption algorithms, both when stored (at rest) and when being transmitted over networks (in transit). In addition, implement strong access controls to ensure that only authorized users and applications can access encrypted data. Both controls will limit attackers’ ability to view and use the data, thereby reducing the risk of data exfiltration and leakage and of ransom demands.

8. Scan for Vulnerabilities and Misconfigurations

Regularly scan your cloud environment for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and compliance violations. These practices involve identifying weaknesses, such as outdated software, unpatched vulnerabilities, or improper configurations, which could be exploited by cyber attackers. By doing so, organizations can proactively detect potential threats and take corrective actions before they are exploited.

Cloud environment scanning is complemented with application security, which scans and secures at the code-level, IaC templates, APIs, containers, etc.

9. Analyze Cloud-Native Application Behavior

Use ML and behavior analytics to detect runtime anomalies that may indicate a breach or other malicious activity in real-time. Immediately respond. This will allow you to quickly contain and mitigate threats before they escalate into more significant incidents.

10. Leverage Runtime Threat Intelligence

Integrate runtime threat intelligence feeds into your security monitoring tools to stay ahead of emerging threats. Proactively monitoring threat landscapes is another that allows you to mitigate risks before they can impact your infrastructure.

11. Automate Incident Response

Automate reactions to detected threats by triggering predefined orchestration workflows with automated response solutions. This can include actions like isolating compromised instances, terminating suspicious processes, or blocking malicious IP addresses. Automation reduces the response time, minimizes human error, and ensures consistent application of security policies.

12. Complement CNAPP with Cloud-Native Application Security

Use CNAPP with other application security tools that provide SCA, SAST, DAST, API Security, Container Security and others. This will provide comprehensive protection across the entire application lifecycle. Together, CNAPP and application security cover the entire SDLC, modern cloud-native applications and even legacy systems that may not be fully compatible with cloud-native technologies. This approach ensures consistent security coverage, regardless of the application architecture.

13. Ensure Compliance

Regularly assess your cloud environment against industry standards and frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. Document all findings and remediate any compliance gaps promptly to avoid penalties and reduce the risk of data breaches.

14. Develop a Security Culture

Create a culture of shared responsibility for security by encouraging collaboration between security, development and operations teams (DevSecOps/DevOps) teams. Use regular training sessions, workshops, and security champions programs to keep all teams informed and engaged. Build a relationship with AppSec teams and engineers responsible for application security, to ensure consistent security from code to cloud to runtime.

15. Create a Culture of Transparency

When employees trust that their concerns will be taken seriously and addressed appropriately, they are more likely to act promptly in identifying and reporting potential security threats. This openness not only helps in early detection and mitigation of risks but also promotes a collaborative atmosphere where security is seen as a shared responsibility. By empowering their workforce to contribute actively to their security posture, organizations strengthen their overall defense against cyber threats.

Checkmarx Cloud Native Application Security Solution 

How to complement CNAPP for application security? Checkmarx One is Checkmarx’s cloud application security platform, a unified application security solution – from development to deployment. Seamlessly integrating into the SDLC and DevSecOps pipelines, Checkmarx One ensures comprehensive security across code, APIs, containers and infrastructure, both in the cloud and for legacy applications.

With Checkmarx, enterprises ensure reduced false positives, enhanced productivity with AI, dev-sec collaboration built on trust, reduced TCO, and above all – excellent and improved security outcomes. This is done by identifying issues early and accurately pinpointing vulnerabilities and providing developers with accurate guidance on remediating issues.

Capabilities of Checkmarx One’s cloud application security platform include:

• Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
• Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
• Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)
• Software Supply Chain Security (SSCS)
• API Security
• Container Security
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security

CNAPP lacks the ability to provide comprehensive application security, which is where Checkmarx shines. Checkmarx integrates with leading CNAPP providers like Wiz and Sysdig to provide comprehensive visibility that drives early remediation, for both AppSec managers and developers. 

Learn more about how Checkmarx can secure your applications by requesting a demo.