As security teams deploy more and more tools and point solutions, they face substantial delays in data ingest, correlation, and analysis. As a result, attackers can advance and carry out their malicious activities before teams can even detect their presence.

However, a new Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) white paper details how these delays and challenges can be overcome by adopting a unified approach that combines cloud-native application protection (CNAPP) and extended detection and response (XDR).

The ESG white paper, "Secure the Expanding Cloud-native Attack Surface with Unified XDR and Cloud-native Application Protection,” explains how leveraging the power of a unified CNAPP and XDR platform can streamline data assembly and analysis, freeing up valuable time for proactive risk reduction.

The Limitations of XDR

Although XDR solutions continue to improve, they encounter numerous challenges in the efficient aggregation, correlation, and analysis of extensive security telemetry to identify and mitigate ongoing threats. Although they offer undeniable advantages over isolated solutions, many struggle to keep pace, leaving room for attacks to inflict more damage than necessary.

Early XDR investments primarily targeted bridging gaps in attack surface visibility and overcoming the burden of context switching. But as development teams grow, new challenges emerge that require organizations to have a robust solution for correlating threat activity across various aspects of their infrastructure. This includes developer machines, source code repositories, identity providers, and cloud infrastructure.

Analyzing data across different tools can be a time-consuming and manual task. For instance, connecting identity information from an IAM solution to audit logs from a developer repository can unveil suspicious behavior as code moves in and out of repositories and into production.

In light of these challenges, it is imperative for endpoint security teams to prioritize and enhance their threat detection and response capabilities. By aligning endpoint security strategies with the use of cloud computing services, organizations can effectively stay ahead of potential threats. This approach is vital in identifying and thwarting attacks before attackers can gain access to sensitive data and services hosted in the cloud.

Unifying CNAPP and XDR to Gain Control and Scale

Organizations face numerous challenges in managing multiple siloed tools as attack surfaces expand, hindering security teams and impeding progress. To overcome these hurdles, a unified solution is essential, offering control, risk mitigation, and rapid response to threats or attacks. This is where CNAPPs come into play, unifying various cloud security capabilities such as cloud workload protection (CWP), cloud security posture management (CSPM), and cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM). By moving to CNAPPs, organizations can leverage information from different areas, gaining better context and understanding to prioritize remediation actions. This streamlined approach reduces the time spent on analysis across tools and alert triage, enabling faster response.

"85% of organizations believe a CNAPP will give them a more efficient way to

mitigate risk, and 87% believe a CNAPP will help drive efficiency in connecting application security processes to security posture management."

– Secure the Expanding Cloud-native Attack Surface with Unified XDR and Cloud-native Application Protection

However, one crucial aspect often overlooked is securing developer workstations or laptops when connecting to the cloud. By adopting a unified CNAPP and XDR approach, security teams gain the necessary visibility and control to drive efficient remediation. This empowers them to effectively manage risks while facilitating secure digital transformation, ultimately leading to better business outcomes.

ESG research highlights the critical need for organizations to enhance their security practices and drive efficiency to support the scale and growth of cloud-native development. By leveraging the power of a unified CNAPP and XDR platform, teams can streamline data assembly and analysis, freeing up valuable time for proactive risk reduction.

According to ESG, a staggering 85% of organizations recognize the tremendous value of a CNAPP in mitigating risk, while an impressive 87% acknowledge its potential to revolutionize application security processes and enhance overall security posture management.

How Can Uptycs Help?

Uptycs empowers organizations to bolster security for the modern attack surface by leveraging a single data model. By seamlessly streaming normalized data into a data lake, Uptycs employs a "shift up" approach that delivers interconnect insights, control, and operational efficiency to security teams, enabling them to effectively mitigate risk.

The Uptycs model provides:

• A unified platform with consolidated XDR and CNAPP capabilities, including cloud security posture management, cloud workload protection, Kubernetes and container security, cloud detection and response, identity analytics, cyber asset inventory, audit, and compliance.

• Visibility and control from endpoints to cloud environments, from where the code is developed to where it is deployed.

• Normalized telemetry with data collected from multiple sources, normalized and streamed into a data lake for analytics processing.

• Powerful analytics engine using activity and flow logs and enabling security teams to enforce least-privilege policies, detect threats, and investigate incidents.

With a unified platform, organizations benefit from the following:

• Increased collaboration across teams.

• Increased operational efficiency, reducing manual work and analysis.

• Faster, more effective threat detection and response.

• A more complete picture of security posture that includes endpoints.

• Reduction in operating costs, including faster deployment and simplified management.

Join the ranks of forward-thinking organizations and unlock the full potential of a unified CNAPP and XDR platform by downloading the white paper today.