Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms

Chapter 7. Protecting Your Runtime

Check to your right-hand side first, then check to your left and then to your right again before you cross.

Part of the “Green Cross Code” by the National Road Safety Committee of the United Kingdom

Knowledge is realizing the street is one-way; wisdom is looking both directions anyway

Anonymous

On the continuum of your software development lifecycle, looking—or shifting—left is all the rage, and for good reason. The more you can do to protect your systems early in their lifecycle, the better prepared they are when they’re brought to life, and being attacked.

But looking only one way when you cross the street is a surefire way to risk your life;¹ you need to look both ways, shifting left and right, to be as safe and secure as possible. An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, but when your systems hit reality, you want to know they’re protected on the right-hand side of the equation, just as much as vulnerabilities are being detected and overcome on the left. See Figure 7-1.

Figure 7-1. Securing from left to right, from development and supply chain prevention to runtime protection

This is why your CNAPP represents a holistic approach to securing cloud native applications across their entire lifecycle. And we needed that safety net when MI5 came calling.² Our system wasn’t just leaky in preventable ways; some of those facets only ...