How To Approach Cloud Native Application Security and Why Snyk is the Best Solution for Your Needs

The development world has changed, and organizations are still adapting to developing in the cloud. Cloud native technology and containers are now at the forefront of software development, meaning that software no longer exists and operates locally. However, despite these quick advancements, cloud native application security still lags behind.

This article will cover how you should approach cloud native application security and why Snyk is the best solution for your needs.

Cloud Native Application Security Needs To Change

More and more organizations are moving towards serverless, cloud native architecture for their software without creating new best practices for this new environment. The CI/CD pipeline is slowed down by the lengthy and complex procedures required by traditional approaches to application security. In addition, as technology develops, security teams encounter new difficulties.

With these new DevOps processes that have evolved out of serverless and AWS systems, we’ve begun to see infrastructure being implemented into the code itself with tools like Docker and Kubernetes. But rather than waiting for security teams to implement it afterward, developers now need to start incorporating security into the development process from the beginning.

In addition, the use of open-source software has grown to be an even bigger part of the development process, which has its own problems. Security teams now need to keep track of each individual software license for these components in addition to being more aware of potential vulnerabilities in open source components. There are over a hundred different open source software licenses that your team will need to keep track of for compliance and regulations.

Who is Snyk?

With its developer-first approach to software, Snyk is a relative newcomer to the market, having been founded in 2015. Their Developer Security Platform integrates seamlessly into your development process by incorporating ongoing monitoring, safe code assurance, and vulnerability identification and patching.

How Snyk's Developer Security Platform Can Help

With the help of Snyk's robust platform, your development team can work securely and safely with a wide range of options. To implement security at the outset of development, they provide developer-first tools that are integrated with the tools your team already uses.

Their platform offers four distinct products to assist your team, each of which serves a crucial purpose:

Snyk Open Source

Open source software (OSS) and license adherence don't need to be as important concerns for your security team. The Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tool from Snyk offers a wide range of advantages, such as:

  • Monitoring your CI/CD pipeline and pull requests with automated testing.
  • Providing data for analysis, allowing you to make data-driven decisions.
  • Identifying, alerting, and fixing issues such as outdated packages or applying proprietary patches for some OSS.
  • Protecting you from new vulnerabilities that might arise in your code while providing a central location to view and manage all of your information.
  • Create custom security policies to fit your needs, as well as license compliance policies for OSS.

With Snyk SCA, your team is covered from A to Z when it comes to OSS.

Snyk Code

Application security can be a time-consuming process, which is why it used to come up at the end of the SDLC. However, with today's modern architecture and development techniques, we have seen a steadily growing shift to prioritize security as early in the process with tools like Static Application Security Testing (SAST).

Snyk Code is a SAST tool that, while still being developer-friendly, can speed up your testing process by up to 50 times. To help teams quickly identify and address important problems and better disseminate information about vulnerabilities as they are discovered, they run an extensive vulnerability database.

Snyk Container

The responsibility for maintaining an environment's security has shifted away from the sysadmins and IT teams due to the significant shift to containers in the modern development cycle. Instead, developers must take care to secure their configurations and containers, which is no simple task.

Teams can maintain secure and current containers with the help of Snyk's Container tool. It enhances your containers' OSS vulnerability detection and monitoring, identifies and prioritises problems with container configurations, and even updates base images when necessary.

Putting It All Together

Traditional approaches to application security often require lengthy and complicated procedures, which slow down the CI/CD pipeline. The adoption of open-source software has become an even more significant part of the development cycle, which brings its own issues as well. Snyk's robust platform offers numerous different solutions to help empower your development team to work securely and safely.

Let our experienced Cloud Assessment Solutions team guide you through the process of uncovering your cloud security maturity. Sign up today to schedule your free Cloud Security Assessment.