Jonathan Lalou's Blog

Lecturer

Leor Hasson serves as Director of Cloud Security Advocacy at Tenable, guiding organizations toward unified exposure management across cloud-native environments.

Abstract

This analytical treatment conceptualizes cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP) as evolutionary synthesis beyond CSPM, CWPP, CIEM, and DSPM fragmentation. It articulates cloud-specific security challenges—novel attack vectors, expertise scarcity, tool proliferation, collaboration intensity—and programmatic opportunities. A structured ten-phase iterative progression guides advancement from inventory to automated remediation, emphasizing contextual risk prioritization through Tenable One’s hybrid attack path visualization.

Cloud Security Challenges and Programmatic Opportunities

Cloud computing introduces unprecedented attack surfaces, nascent practitioner expertise, overwhelming toolsets, and intensified cross-functional requirements. Yet programmatic access to configurations and logs, combined with delegated responsibility, unlocks automation potential.

CNAPP unifies visibility across workloads, infrastructure, identities, networks, and sensitive data. Tenable integrates AWS, multi-cloud, identity providers, CI/CD pipelines, and third-party systems.

Ten-Phase Iterative Maturity Pathway

The non-linear progression includes:

1. Asset Inventory – Comprehensive discovery
2. Contextual Exposure – Risk differentiation (public PII vs. isolated)
3. Actionable Remediation – Executable fixes

Advanced phases: IAM Least Privilege (over-permission detection), Network Exposure Graphing, Data Classification, Vulnerability-Exploitability Correlation, IaC Scanning (Terraform instantiation risks), Malicious Code Detection, Automated Ticketing/Webhooks.

\# IaC risk example
resource "aws_s3_bucket" "sensitive" {
  bucket = "confidential-data"
  acl    = "public-read"

  server_side_encryption_configuration {
    rule {
      apply_server_side_encryption_by_default {
        sse_algorithm = "AES256"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tenable One correlates cloud findings with endpoint vulnerabilities, tracing access keys from developer machines to sensitive data.

Organizational Implications

Contextual prioritization compresses exposure; hybrid visibility prevents lateral movement. Implications include accelerated maturity, resource optimization, and regulatory alignment.

Links:

• Video: Cloud security novice to expert in 10 steps