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

What is CNAPP?

A Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is a unified security solution that protects apps in multi-cloud environments. It’s a security solution that allows teams to build, run, and deploy cloud native applications securely. CNAPP is used to make DevSecOps teams collaborate, be more efficient, and reduce their security burdens. It also helps maintain compliance and consolidates

• CIEM (Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management)
• IAM (Identity and Access Management)
• CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management)
• DSPM (Data Security Posture Management)
• AI-SPM (AI Security Posture Management)
• KSPM (Kubernetes Security Posture Management)
• CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platform)
• Data Protection

The goal of every CNAPP is to focus on continuous monitoring, ensure lifecycle security, and help organizations stay vigilant and proactive in today’s dynamic landscape of evolving cyber and cloud native security threats. In this guide, we will have Cloud Native Application Protection explained, break down why CNAPP is needed, and more below.

Why is CNAPP Important?

Traditional security tools and approaches are limited to protecting only on-premises data centers and endpoints. They don’t protect cloud native apps and services by design. As we’re migrating towards cloud native technologies and changing, ephemeral ecosystems, there is a need for stronger security automation, faster releases, and the implementation of modern DevSecOps practices. 

Security teams push code frequently to public and private clouds. As cloud environments scale up, their need for handling security and compliance effectively increases.  Identifying, detecting, and mitigating vulnerabilities and critical security issues on time are among their key requirements. Many interdependencies pop up when they are working with multi-cloud ecosystems.

Want Cloud Native Application Protection Platform explained in a nutshell and why it’s so important? Here’s the answer: CNAPP ensures container lifecycle security, evolves with workloads, and protects apps that connect with various infrastructure components and services. At a minimum, a CNAPP is needed because it ensures the security of cloud service configurations and it also secures production environments. CNAPP is important because it automates cloud-native security, ensures 24/7 protection, and closes gaps or blind spots that analysts can often miss.

Gartner Recommendations for CNAPP

Gartner recommends security teams and risk management leaders who are responsible for cloud security strategies to research, analyze, and evaluate emerging CNAPP offerings. A Cloud Native Application Protection Platform addresses the full life cycle protection requirements of cloud-native apps and infrastructure from development to production. Attack surfaces are expanding and modern CNAPP solutions will focus on securing runtime environments, especially networks, compute, storage, identities and permissions, and other cloud security controls.

It predicts that 60% of organizations that don’t deploy a unified CNAPP solution within their cloud infrastructure will lack extensive visibility into their cloud attack surfaces. Without CNAPP, companies will fail to meet their zero-trust security goals and this will be a reality in 2029. Surges in cloud threats have also spiked rapid adoption of CNAPPs for cloud-native security.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reveals key capabilities of CNAPP technologies and provides deeper insights into various IT and cloud security products and services, including their customized use cases.

Core Components of CNAPP

A Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform comes with various key components that enable the protection of each stage of the software development life cycle, right up to production environments.

CNAPP solutions include the following:

• Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) – CWPP protects cloud workloads, VMs, containers, Kubernetes clusters, and serverless environments. CWPP agents and agentless scanners can identify critical vulnerabilities, block malicious activities, and prevent policy violations during runtime. They stop threats before they have a chance to escalate. 
• Cloud Infrastructure and Entitlement Management (CIEM) – CNAPP solutions can discover, manage, and tightly control access rights across entire cloud resources. They can prevent overly permissive roles, misused keys, and stop privilege-based attacks.
• Shift-left and IaC Security – CNAPP can enforce shift-left security. It can scan code repos, IaC templates, and container images at the very early stages of CI/CD pipelines. CNAPP detects vulnerabilities before production and can help dramatically cut down security costs and risks. 
• Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) – CNAPP solutions can correlate and detect advanced threats autonomously. Cloud Detection and Response services are another one of their key components. CNAPP CDR delivers the necessary forensics and response actions needed to neutralize attacks quickly.
• Governance and Compliance – CNAPP platforms can ensure continuous cloud security governance and compliance. They ensure adherence with the latest regulatory standards like HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and other frameworks.

CNAPP vs CSPM

Here are a few critical differences between CNAPP vs CSPM:

• CSPM cannot issue security alerts to users or give insights into cloud workloads. It can’t prioritize security risks or give full environmental context. CSPM solutions cannot detect lateral movements within networks. CNAPP can do all of this.
• CNAPP solutions give comprehensive reporting capabilities, analytics, and intelligent threat remediation. They provide complete agentless security coverage and can centralize cloud security insights. 
• CNAPP includes CSPM, KSPM, CWPP, CDR, and a host of other security tools and features. It also streamlines governance, compliance, and reduces the risk of misconfigurations by security cloud-native apps. CNAPP can also manage user account permissions and enhance cloud security posture as a whole.

Explore the differences in detail: CNAPP vs. CSPM

How CNAPP Works?

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.

CNAPP Architecture and Functionality

A good CNAPP starts off by collecting data from myriad sources, including cloud services, containers, Kubernetes clusters, code repos, and more. CNAPP can pull data from cloud identity service providers and even third-party security tools. Agentless CNAPP solutions provide rapid insights and detect security issues across multiple cloud platforms. CNAPP can also come with dedicated agents that offer complete runtime protection and forensics up to the workload level.

CNAPP’s collected telemetry data flows into a unified security data lake or console. A strong CNAPP can correlate processes, events, and activities in real-time. It can identify exploit path, block malicious processes, and detect suspicious activities that would otherwise go unnoticed. CNAPP’s dashboards give you an at-a-glance view of your entire cloud estate. It can help you manage your cloud security posture as a whole and provide an overview of all your cloud assets and resources.

CNAPP’s architecture helps security teams enforce security policies and ensure their consistency across multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. These solutions can quarantine malicious workloads without human intervention. They can also rotate secrets and offload mundane tasks from security teams so that they become free to focus on other important matters.

Challenges CNAPP Solves

Here is a list of the various security challenges that CNAPP can solve:

• More than 80% of enterprises use multiple clouds today. It’s important to protect organizations from potential breaches. Multi-cloud ecosystems need to be coordinated well and when cloud operations and architectures scale up, they can compound security challenges. Cloud native application security platforms can resolve security silos and consolidate workflows for better security management outcomes.
• Security teams are overwhelmed with workloads and face chronic alert fatigue. Dealing with multiple solutions means that they have to sift through hundreds and thousands of alerts daily. There can be false positives, alert noise, and slip-ups.  Expanding threat vectors and attack surfaces also squeeze in hidden exploits, unknown threats, and other security issues that can bypass traditional security measures. All these leave organizations fully exposed which CNAPP solves.
• It can take up to 228 days to identify a data breach and 80 days to contain. 308 days to stop a breach is just too cloud. Threats evolve and act fast, and organizations need to keep up. CNAPP can cut down on incident response times and prevent insider attacks. It can take an offensive security approach and predict attacks before they happen by analyzing various attack paths and patterns. CNAPP solutions are designed to adapt, evolve, and scale up with your organization’s cloud assets and security resources. They do not fall behind like legacy solutions.

Benefits of Using CNAPP

It’s a good time to switch to CNAPP. Here’s why – CNAPP solutions offer the following benefits to organizations in 2025:

• CNAPP provides a single pane of glass view. CNAPP solutions improve efficiency, team collaboration, and identity and correlate cloud security issues, events, logs, and more. You learn about hidden attack vectors via data visualizations, flows and alerts.
• CNAPP provides threat remediation guidance and helps teams get the support needed for making informed security decisions. They provide deeper visibility and insights across entire multi-cloud footprints. 
• CNAPP installs guardrails to distribute security responsibility. It reduces the burden on security teams and injects controls for every phase of the DevOps cycle. It helps developers take security ownership of their work, reduces friction between security and DevOps, and streamlines DevSecOps workflows. 
• CNAPP makes an organization’s security more agile, flexible, and scalable. It integrates with modern IDEs, addresses misconfigurations and compliance issues, and remediates risks early on. Teams can take a proactive security stance and act quickly before any incident or data breaches can occur.
• CNAPP solutions reduce operational costs. Many teams manage multiple standalone tools: a CSPM for misconfigurations, a separate agent for runtime protection, and another for correlating alerts. CNAPP merges these features into a single solution, cutting licensing fees and administrative overheads and reducing integration complexity. CNAPP streamlines processes and reduces tool sprawl.

CNAPP Best Practices

CNAPP can offer complete visibility and control over your cloud infrastructure. Also, CNAPP can secure public, private, hybrid, single, and even multi-clouds. CNAPP solutions give you access to metrics and KPIs needed to continuously monitor your environments without restricting workflows or disrupting business operations.

Here are of the best CNAPP practices to follow for security professionals:

• Adopt Shift-Left Security From Day One: This would include proactively scanning infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates, such as Terraform or CloudFormation, container images, and code repositories before being sent into production. Consider automatically scanning every pull request on GitHub or GitLab, among others. Early detection of misconfigurations prevents costly rework and potential security holes in the future.
• Automate Policy Enforcement: Set policies for resource configurations, identity permissions, and container security that the CNAPP can automatically enforce. For example, define rules to ensure all S3 buckets remain private by default, or that Kubernetes pods can’t run with privileged access. Automation streamlines compliance and frees your team to focus on top-level strategy rather than manual triage.
• Set Up Granular Alert Prioritization: Configure your CNAPP to categorize vulnerabilities into severity tiers—critical, high, medium, and low. Then, align these tiers with actionable workflows, so your team understands the immediate steps required for each. This ensures the biggest threats receive the quickest response while less critical issues enter a backlog for future remediation.
• Embrace Zero-Trust and Role-Based Access: If your platform supports identity entitlement management (CIEM), enforce the principle of least privilege so that users and workloads have only the minimal access needed. Refine RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) to reduce lateral movement for container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes. This best practice mitigates the blast radius of any breach and creates a more resilient environment.
• Enable Continuous Feedback Loops: Don’t treat your CNAPP as a static black box. If it supports user feedback or custom rule creation, actively refine detection logic using your real-world findings. Did the platform flag specific vulnerabilities as critical, but they had a low impact? Adjust the classification. Over time, your CNAPP will become more intelligent and specific to your environment.
• Regularly Test & Upgrade: Consider running scheduled penetration tests or red team exercises against your CNAPP environment. This will validate your detection and response measures, highlight coverage gaps, and provide actionable data to strengthen your defenses. Whenever new CNAPP features or updates roll out, plan a structured upgrade process that includes testing in a staging environment.
• Monitor Runtime Telemetry for Forensics: If your CNAPP includes runtime protection, enable detailed logging and memory forensics. Collecting data on process activities, system calls, or container lifecycle events lays a foundation for deeper incident investigations. In the event of an attack, forensic logs become invaluable for root-cause analysis and compliance reporting.

CNAPP Use Cases in Cloud Security 

Here are some of the most popular CNAPP use cases in cloud security:

• Containerized Environments & DevSecOps: Today’s microservices revolve around Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines. A CNAPP integrates seamlessly into these workflows by scanning container images in the registry, verifying that configurations meet best practices, and monitoring pods at runtime. Now, consider applying a new update to some microservices. Your CNAPP flags that an insecure container build goes live—that’s the magic of achieving speed without losing security.
• AI & Machine Learning Deployments: AI models depend on massive datasets and iterate quickly. A CNAPP that supports AI pipeline posture management alerts you to misconfigurations or vulnerabilities in ML frameworks, GPU instances, or specialized data stores. Rather than scrambling to protect new AI services or setting up ad-hoc solutions, you can systematically track assets and enforce consistent security policies across the entire ML lifecycle.
• Retail & eCommerce in Multi-Cloud: Many online retailers run applications across AWS, Azure, and on-prem data centers. With a CNAPP, you unify security under a single console. Automated posture checks flag any misconfiguration in an online storefront, and universal alerting ensures a rapid fix—even if that store is distributed across multiple providers. This speed and consistency are critical during peak shopping seasons when every minute of downtime impacts revenue.
• Healthcare & Financial Services Compliance: Industries with strict regulations (HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR) find CNAPP especially valuable. Beyond scanning resources, a CNAPP offers detailed compliance mapping and automated evidence collection, simplifying audits and reducing the risk of data breaches that carry heavy fines. For instance, a healthcare application that processes ePHI might spawn a new VM. CNAPP tests that against HIPAA in real-time.
• Remote & Hybrid Workforce Protection: The rise of remote work increases the attack surface. CNAPPs can lock down overly permissive user roles, suspicious sign-ins, and ephemeral infrastructure spinning up in unapproved regions. They keep workloads under one umbrella regardless of where users connect from.

How to Choose the Right CNAPP for Your Organization?

You should pick a CNAPP that aligns with your business goals. It will involve balancing technical, operational, and budget considerations. Here’s what you need to look for:

• Scope & Coverage: Confirm that the platform supports your cloud environments and workloads (VMs, containers, serverless).
• Integration Ease: Look for compatibility with your CI/CD pipelines, code repositories, and security infrastructure. More straightforward integrations reduce adoption friction.
• AI & Automation Features: Evaluate how advanced the platform’s analytics are—effective machine learning can drastically reduce false positives and speed response times.
• Customizability: Assess whether you can easily define custom detection rules, compliance checks, and workflows to match specific security or regulatory needs.
• Vendor Support & Expertise: The best CNAPP providers offer robust documentation, training, and specialized expertise to help your organization during implementation.

Level Up Your Cloud Security with SentinelOne’s Comprehensive CNAPP

SentinelOne’s Singularity™ Cloud Security is a unified Cloud Native Application Protection Platform for enterprises. It is the world’s most advanced autonomous cybersecurity solution. It is also an AI-enhanced CNAPP that grants access to integrated and world-class threat intelligence.

Singularity™ Cloud Security offers no-code hyper automation, can prioritize fixes with Verified Exploit Paths™, and comes with an AI security analyst.

Here’s what it can do:

• Agentless Rapid Deployment: Spin up posture management in minutes—no need to install software on each workload. Automated scans immediately inventory your cloud environments for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance risks.
• Deep Protection using a Runtime agent: For critical workloads, a runtime agent provides real-time detection of ransomware, zero-day exploits, and fileless attacks. You can gain forensic telemetry and near-instant rollback capabilities if threats materialize.
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): Full compliance checks, hyper-automation for policy enforcement, and a graph-based asset inventory let you quickly find and fix critical misconfigurations.
• Vulnerability Management & Shift-Left Container Scanning: SentinelOne covers the entire development lifecycle; it can scan code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, and secure container registries to prevent vulnerabilities from reaching production.
• AI Security Posture Management: Discover AI pipelines, analyze AI data model configurations, and uncover verified exploit paths for AI services.
• External Attack Surface Management: Automate pen testing and exploit path discovery to ensure that hidden assets or incorrectly exposed services don’t become high-risk blind spots.

Conclusion

You have seen how Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms can integrate your cloud assets under one security framework, filling gaps that traditional tools cannot fill. Adopting a CNAPP approach is securing containers and virtual machines and establishing a forward-thinking defense strategy that meets the demands of rapid development and evolving threats.

CNAPP provides integrated policy enforcement, automated detection and response, and a culture of continuous improvement to transform complex cloud ecosystems into resilient, secure environments, from fragmented solutions to an all-in-one platform that protects your applications throughout their cloud journey. Try SentinelOne today.