What is CNAPP (Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform)?

Cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) are vital for securing modern applications. Understand their role in enhancing your security posture.
Author: SentinelOne Updated: July 31, 2025

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) are revolutionizing the way we secure cloud-based applications. Our guide explores the key features and benefits of CNAPP, including its ability to provide comprehensive visibility, risk assessment, and security controls across the entire cloud-native application lifecycle.

Learn how CNAPP can help you streamline security operations, reduce vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance in a cloud-native environment. Stay ahead of the curve and protect your cloud-native applications with our expert insights on CNAPP.

What is a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)?

A Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is a security solution to protect cloud-native applications. These applications are built using microservice architecture and run on containerized environments like Kubernetes, OpenShift, or Docker. A CNAPP offers a holistic approach to cloud security, protecting the entire application lifecycle from development to production.

Ideal Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) use vulnerability scanning, threat detection, response, runtime protection, and policy enforcement techniques to secure cloud-native applications. In addition, they are designed to be highly scalable and automated, making them ideal for cloud environments where applications are constantly changing and scaling.

Why Do Businesses Need CNAPPs?

Adopting cloud-native applications has brought numerous benefits to businesses, including improved agility, scalability, and cost-efficiency. However, it has also introduced new security challenges. Cloud-native applications are highly dynamic and are constantly changing, making it difficult for traditional security solutions to keep up.

CNAPPs are purpose-built for securing cloud-native applications and provide a comprehensive security solution. They offer visibility and control over the entire application development and deployment pipeline, ensuring that security is integrated into every process stage. In addition, CNAPPs provide real-time protection and response to threats, ensuring that applications remain secure even as they scale and change.

Benefits of CNAPPs

In addition, a CNAPP offers several advantages over traditional security solutions when protecting cloud-native applications. CNAPPs offer numerous benefits to businesses, including:

  • Comprehensive Security – A CNAPP offers a comprehensive security solution that covers the entire application lifecycle. From securing the application code in the development stage to protecting the application in production, a CNAPP provides end-to-end security.
  • Scalability – Cloud-native applications are designed to be scalable, and a CNAPP offers the same scalability. A CNAPP can scale up or down based on the application workload, ensuring the application is always protected.
  • Agility – Cloud-native applications are designed to be agile, and a CNAPP offers the same agility. A CNAPP can adapt to changes in the application environment, providing security even as the application architecture evolves.
  • Automation – A CNAPP offers automation, which means that security tasks are automated, reducing the burden on the security team. This frees up the security team to focus on other critical tasks, improving the organization’s overall security posture.
  • Ease of Management – A CNAPP offers ease of management, with a single console for managing all security policies. This makes it easier for the security team to manage security policies and respond to security incidents.

How Does CNAPP Work?

CNAPP works by integrating security into the entire cloud-native application lifecycle. This includes development, testing, deployment, and production. The platform provides a set of security features that are designed to work with cloud-native applications, such as:

  • Container security – CNAPP protects against container-based attacks by scanning images for vulnerabilities, monitoring runtime behavior, and enforcing runtime policies.
  • Network security – CNAPP provides network security by monitoring traffic, enforcing security policies, and detecting and preventing attacks.
  • Application security – CNAPP provides application security by scanning applications for vulnerabilities, monitoring runtime behavior, and enforcing runtime policies.
  • Data security – CNAPP provides data security by monitoring data access, enforcing data protection policies, and detecting and preventing data breaches.

CNAPP also provides advanced threat detection and response capabilities, including automated incident response, threat hunting, and security analytics.

Conclusion

As businesses migrate their applications to the cloud, a cloud-native security solution becomes increasingly essential. A Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) provides a comprehensive, scalable, agile, and automated approach to cloud security, making it the ultimate solution for protecting cloud-native applications. With a CNAPP, businesses can have peace of mind knowing that their cloud-native applications are protected throughout their lifecycle.

Singularity Cloud Workload Security is runtime cloud threat protection, detection, and response for your multi-cloud workloads. Whether your workloads run on-prem or public cloud, in VMs, containers, or Kubernetes clusters, SentinelOne works alongside other security controls to do what they do not: stop runtime threats like ransomware, zero-days, and memory injection. To learn more, visit our product page. There you can find customer testimonials, whitepapers, and more.

Cloud Native Application Protection Platform FAQs

What is a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform?

A CNAPP is a unified security solution designed to protect cloud-native applications across their lifecycle. It combines workload protection, vulnerability management, cloud security posture management (CSPM), and compliance monitoring.

CNAPP helps secure applications, infrastructure, and data by continuously scanning cloud resources and workloads for risks and misconfigurations.

How does a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform work?

CNAPP collects data from cloud environments, container runtimes, APIs, and infrastructure-as-code. It analyzes this information to identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and threats. Alerts and risk scores guide security teams to prioritize fixes.

CNAPP integrates with DevSecOps tools and automates policy enforcement, so security is built into the application delivery pipeline.

What are the core features of a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform?

Key features include cloud security posture management for configuration checks, workload protection for containers and VMs, vulnerability scanning, compliance reporting against standards, runtime detection and response, and risk visualization. Together, these cover prevention, detection, and response for modern cloud-native applications.

What's the Best Cloud-Native Protection for Cloud Security?

The best protection depends on your environment, but a solution that combines CSPM, CWPP, and vulnerability management in one platform offers more complete coverage. Look for tools that integrate with your CI/CD pipeline, provide real-time visibility across cloud, containers, and serverless, and offer automated remediation options.

What is the Difference Between CNAPP, CSPM, and CWPP?

CSPM focuses on cloud configuration and compliance monitoring. CWPP secures cloud workloads like VMs and containers at runtime. CNAPP combines both and adds vulnerability management and risk analytics to offer a broad, unified security approach that covers the entire cloud-native stack from infrastructure to applications.

What are the Best Practices for Implementing a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform?

Start by assessing your cloud and application landscape. Map CNAPP features to your security policies and compliance needs. Integrate CNAPP tools into your DevOps workflows for early detection during development.

Use continuous scanning and automated alerts. Regularly review and tune policies, and ensure teams are trained to respond quickly to findings.

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