Cloud Alphabet Soup Examining CSPM, DSPM, KSPM, and CNAPP

By: Becca Gomby

Oct 24, 2024

Cloud native applications are dominating the tech landscape for modern enterprises. A garden-variety cloud native application consists of microservices deployed in containers orchestrated with Kubernetes, and these microservices interact together via APIs.

Netflix, Salesforce, and Atlassian products like Jira and Confluence are all common examples of cloud native applications. Cloud native products currently make up a USD $4.6 billion market, and researchers estimate that number will grow to nearly USD $53 billion by 2033.

However, as the cloud native application market grows, security vulnerabilities and attack vectors grow as well. In response, a veritable alphabet soup of security strategies has emerged—CSPM, DSPM, KSPM, and CNAPP—representing a set of new technologies that aim to help secure these cloud native applications

In this post, we’ll unpack the tools behind the acronyms, providing a clear understanding of the role each one plays in cloud native application security. Then, we’ll look more closely at Panoptica, an all-in-one CNAPP that bundles in these security technologies.

CSPM = Cloud Security Posture Management

Cloud security posture management (CSPM) provides centralized visibility into cloud infrastructure through continuous monitoring to detect insecure or incorrect configurations, thereby preventing security vulnerabilities. Some examples of misconfigurations include:

  • Openly accessible cloud storage buckets
  • Cloud compute instances with insecure and open ports
  • Overly permissive access controls that allow unauthorized users to access sensitive data
  • Configuration settings that violate data privacy or protection regulations, leading to non-compliance

The key capabilities of a CSPM system include:

  • Continuous monitoring: Constant checks of cloud configurations against best practices and compliance standards.
  • Compliance assurance: Validation that cloud deployments adhere to regulatory commitments, such as GDPR or HIPAA.
  • Remediation guidance: Actionable steps, offered upon identifying a misconfiguration, to prevent potential breaches.
  • Automated remediation: Automatic execution of steps to remediate vulnerabilities, minimizing the need for human intervention. (Note that not all CSPM systems offer this.)

Cloud resource misconfigurations are a leading cause of cloud security breaches. It’s estimated that 99% of cloud security errors in 2025 will be the result of human errors—or, in other words, misconfigurations. This makes CSPM essential to any enterprise’s cybersecurity toolset.

DSPM = Data Security Posture Management

Data security posture management (DSPM) focuses on managing and securing data within the cloud to protect sensitive information. This is crucial for compliance with data privacy regulations as well as internal data management policies. DSPM identifies risks and implements protective measures to mitigate them. Gartner estimates that by 2026, more than 20% of organizations will deploy DSPM solutions.

Onboarding a DSPM system involves two key processes:

  1. Data discovery inventories all the data that an organization collects, creates, and stores across its cloud environments. Data might be discovered in a variety of formats, including databases, environment variables, and structured application data.
  2. Data classification involves sorting and categorizing data based on its level of sensitivity (such as public, internal, and confidential).

After these two initial processes, DSPM performs security posture and risk assessment, evaluating the potential risks associated with data storage and access. DSPM systems also implement encryption and data access permissions throughout an organization's cloud infrastructure.

DSPM involves automated tools, intelligent algorithms, and data monitoring agents. These tools continuously scan and assess data infrastructure, analyzing data movement and access patterns for anomalies in order to flag potential data breaches or unauthorized retrieval.

KSPM = Kubernetes Security Posture Management

Kubernetes security posture management (KSPM) ensures Kubernetes environments are properly secured and configured. Kubernetes is integral to most cloud native applications, so ensuring its security is critical. KSPM provides the necessary tools to manage configurations, protect runtimes, and address vulnerabilities in Kubernetes deployments.

Misconfigurations in a Kubernetes cluster can have serious implications for security and compliance. One common misconfiguration is overly permissive role-based access control (RBAC) policies, resulting in unauthorized access to resources within the cluster. A KSPM solution audits RBAC configurations, detects over-permissioning, and suggests adjustments to minimize risk.

Another critical security area within Kubernetes is network policy configurations. Unrestricted traffic between pods can lead to lateral movement within the cluster in case of a breach. This in turn can lead to data exfiltration or the spread of malware. KSPM tools enforce network segmentation, ensuring the correct application of network policies that properly restrict pod-to-pod communication, thereby reducing the Kubernetes attack surface.

Compliance violations in Kubernetes often stem from neglecting security benchmarks (such as the CIS Kubernetes benchmark). KSPM tools continuously monitor your cluster against these benchmarks, providing alerts and remediation suggestions for any deviations.

Side-by-side Comparison

Overlap and blurred lines between CSPM, DSPM, and KSPM can make it challenging to understand the role and scope of each one. For clarity, here is a breakdown of the key similarities and differences:

 CSPMDSPMKSPM
Primary FocusCloud environment securityData securityKubernetes security
ScopeMulti-cloud resources, including VMs, databases, storage, and networkingSensitive data across  cloud environmentsKubernetes-specific components, such as clusters, nodes, pods, and the Kubernetes API
Monitored ResourcesConfigurations, compliance, identities, authorization, network settings, compute instance securityData discovery, data classification, data flow, and data lineageRBAC, workload configurations, network policies, container security, API server
Examples of Compliance FocusGDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSSGDPR, HIPAAKubenetes-specific frameworks, such as CIS
Automated RemediationPotentially across all cloud resources, if offered by the providerYes, typically at the data access levelYes, because Kubernetes itself is designed for automated recovery
VisibilityUnified view of the entire, multi-cloud environmentData location, sensitivity, and accessKubernetes-related resources and policies, including RBAC and workload security
Common Vulnerabilities Protected AgainstMisconfigurations, overly permissive roles, unpatched VMs and containersData breaches, unauthorized access, misconfigured storage, over-permissioningAPI server misconfigurations, pod security issues, over-permissioning, network exposure

All three models offer continuous monitoring, solutions for remediation, compliance checks (for their respective domain), and policy management. In addition, they all support tight integration with DevOps practices and tools.

CNAPP = Cloud Native Application Protection Platform

A cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP) is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect cloud native applications. It addresses security and compliance concerns from the earliest stages of development.

Many CNAPP solutions bundle in capabilities from multiple cloud security tools—including CSPM, DSPM, and KSPM—into a single, unified solution.

The key features of a CNAPP include:

  • Software supply chain security
  • Infrastructure as code (IaC) security
  • Vulnerability scanning (third-party dependencies, container images)
  • Cloud Workload Protection (CWP)
  • API security
  • Attack path visualization and analysis
  • CI/CD security

A CNAPP also integrates cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM), ensuring that a user or service in one cloud environment has the same access privileges or restrictions across all “equivalent” resources in all cloud systems. This integration addresses the complexities of managing access controls across cloud environments. In general, this is another advantage of a CNAPP—adding a layer on top of CSPM, DSPM, and KSPM to abstract away differences in cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.

CNAPPs provide a unified approach to cloud security, addressing the complexities and challenges of modern cloud native applications by integrating multiple security functionalities into a single platform.

Panoptica: A CNAPP that Provides CSPM, DSPM, and KSPM

Panoptica, a CNAPP from Outshift by Cisco, secures applications from development to runtime, and across multi-cloud environments. Panoptica ties together the technologies we’ve covered—providing CSPM, DSPM, and KSPM and functionalities out of the box—to bring a comprehensive and holistic solution to the many challenges of cloud native security.

By 2026, organizations using a comprehensive CNAPP to secure cloud-native applications will experience 80% fewer security incidents compared to those using siloed security solutions.

Panoptica eliminates “tool sprawl” by unifying your security solutions and feeds in one dashboard, providing teams with a “cockpit view” of the current state of cloud resources—across all cloud providers and all stages of the development lifecycle.

What does this mean for modern enterprises and teams? CISOs can easily see a real-time summary of their security and attack surface. With Panoptica, DevSecOps developers can see the full context around a critical misconfiguration, along with its potential business implications. Armed with this understanding, they have clear guidelines for resolving issues.

Conclusion

We’ve explored several acronyms related to cloud native applications and their corresponding security solutions. We’ve touched upon CSPM (managing the security state of cloud assets), DSPM (handling security, access, and classification of cloud data), and KSPM (security monitoring and management of Kubernetes clusters and nodes), as well as the technology that ties it all together: CNAPP. 

By leveraging a CNAPP solution like Panoptica, teams can unify these technologies to ensure they have comprehensive, all-in-one cloud native security. Panoptica is a perfect solution both for organizations that are beginning their cloud native journey and those looking to bring together their disparate tooling and streamline their security posture.

Learn more about Panoptica by signing up for the free trial or contacting our team of experts today.

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