Managing security postures across diverse, dynamic environments can be challenging. Here’s an overview of some options, and how defenders can make code-to-cloud visibility a reality.
First things first…
As the saying goes, “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.” Miles Kington wasn’t talking about AppSec solutions when he said it, but he could have been. Because while Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) and Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) are both security strategies that help manage risk and protect data, they operate in different ecosystems and contexts. Get the mix wrong, and there’s a risk of creating blindspots and gaps in security. Get it right, and you’ve got the makings of a good, well-balanced security menu.
So let’s start with the basics:
- Application Security Posture Management’s (ASPM) main objective is securing the application layer and code throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is all about the underlying cloud infrastructure, managing the risks associated with configuration, visibility, and the broader cloud environment.
In short: CSPM secures your cloud environment; ASPM takes care of securing the applications running in that environment.
What does that mean in practical cybersecurity terms?
Same intention, different scope
Both strategies have the same goal: securing your data and systems. ASPM focuses on code vulnerabilities, third-party dependencies, and API exposure. CSPM mitigates risky misconfigurations, compliance violations, and end-user errors or behaviors that create risk. For many organizations, the challenge is deciding which approach to prioritize — or whether to adopt an integrated strategy.
Where to start? Let’s take a look at each approach and consider when (and why) you might choose one over the other.
Why ASPM?
Developers are increasingly taking responsibility for application security. But traditional AppSec tools weren’t built with developers in mind, and can’t keep pace with today’s rapid development cycles. In a world where the lines between application and infrastructure are blurring (think cloud-native developments like containerization or infrastructure-as-code), many organizations have resorted to using multiple and disparate point solutions (often from different vendors, and managed by different teams) to handle everything. The results aren’t pretty…
With the average security team monitoring around 129 applications and sixty or more technologies, it’s safe to say that tool sprawl is overwhelming teams — not to mention muddying the waters for identifying both issues and fixes. Managing multiple disparate tools can create coverage and visibility gaps, trigger excessive alerts, and increase workloads as engineers struggle to manually piece together data from siloed, fragmented solutions. To add insult to injury, all of this has a knock-on, negative effect on release times. That’s where ASPM comes in.
One tool to bind them all
ASPM is an emerging process that unifies separate application security testing (AST), software composition analysis (SCA), and software supply chain security capabilities to prioritize, fix, and track issues throughout the SDLC. It removes the typical silos between disparate application and vulnerability scanning tools, and provides end-to-end visibility and traceability from code to cloud. Gartner forecasts that, by 2026, more than 40% of organizations developing proprietary applications will adopt ASPM.
ASPM’s consolidated approach enables AppSec and DevOps teams to stay on the same page, improve communication, and increase velocity. It’s not just about removing obstacles: ASPM actually drives risk-based prioritization and management, allowing AppSec and developer teams to evolve away from chasing CVEs and into understanding and flagging libraries that are badly maintained, have poor hygiene, or are out of date.
Look both ways: AppSec from code to cloud
Application vulnerabilities are an initial attack point targeted by attackers seeking wider network access. APIs and third-party components are a growing part of that attack surface, both on-premises and in the cloud. ASPM oversees application security for both environments, enabling defenders to manage vulnerabilities, dependencies, and compliance issues across the SDLC, which encompasses code, tooling, processes, and data from operational environments including cloud platforms, containers, and physical infrastructure.
The most effective ASPM platforms improve visibility and traceability within container environments, linking container security issues back to code security issues, substantially shortening response times and mitigating risk within the cloud environment.
ASPM’s code-to-cloud capability helps defenders understand the scope of both on-premises and cloud application architecture — and their vulnerabilities. On the other hand, CSPM has a different (if complementary) agenda.
Where does CSPM fit?
If every business is effectively a software business these days, it’s fair to say that cloud has followed a similar trajectory — and with similar consequences for security. In the early days, companies looking to increase productivity and lower costs were quick to sign up for services like AWS, while security practitioners contemplated a new world where they were being asked to trust cloud providers to secure assets to the same standards as they managed them on-prem. But when it came to responsibility, where would the buck stop?
Fast forward a decade or so, and many of these questions have been addressed. Others linger. Either way, cloud security — like AppSec — has evolved into its own specific niche within the broader cybersecurity realm. Today, more than 86% of organizations have adopted a multi-cloud security strategy. CSPM is just one aspect of that.
With misconfiguration a leading cause of cloud security breaches— think publicly exposed databases, excessive permissions, or exposed access keys — CSPM tools help defenders ensure that cloud resources are correctly configured. Among other things, they can check environments against predefined settings to ensure regulatory compliance, detect and remediate misconfigurations, and assess risk.
For organizations focused on securing their cloud environment as a priority, CSPM covers a lot of bases. However…
The limitations of standalone CSPM
As platforms go, CSPM does a lot of things well. But when application-layer vulnerabilities are one of the leading vectors for breaches, CSPM’s focus on infrastructure can be limiting. Today’s complex multi-cloud, multi-access device landscapes, where interconnected applications are being spun up at an accelerated pace, need something less one-dimensional.
CSPM covers all types of cloud environments but doesn’t work with on-prem. Plus, once an application is deployed, CSPM can’t detect whether or not an app contains vulnerabilities or is at risk. CSPM analyzes cloud configurations and gives context for the systems and services used to develop or host applications. What many CSPM solutions can’t do is provide the full context and visibility into those application-specific risks, from code vulnerabilities to third-party dependencies and API exposures. Ultimately, that’s quite the blind spot: a well-secured infrastructure playing host to vulnerable applications, with no insight into how they interact or connect.
ASPM and CSPM: Better together?
For many organizations, the logic appears to dictate that integrating ASPM and CSPM will create comprehensive security coverage and plug the gaps we just mentioned. The thinking is that ASPM will catch errors at the development stage, while CSPM will do a similar job on misconfiguration. If you’re operating in a sector with strict regulatory controls, such as PCI DSS or HIPAA, the ability to address both sides of the equation is crucial.
On the downside, integrating multiple platforms in an environment where tool sprawl is an issue can add to complexity — and “one size fits all” options often dilute focus or lean more heavily in one direction. Vendors offering both ASPM and CSPM will likely prioritize compatibility with their own tools, limiting options to work with competing solutions. When the real beauty of ASPM is its capacity to integrate with multiple scanning tools, this seems counterproductive.
Finally, there’s the difficulty of merging and aligning the needs of security, development, and ITOps. How will you get the different workflows and processes to work together without overwhelming teams, duplicating tasks, or drowning teams in information?
There’s strength in unity
Choosing between ASPM and CSPM really comes down to where your security priorities are. Each strategy complements the other, and there’s a lot of overlap.
Ultimately, ASPM’s capacity for integration with other tools and its ability to correlate data from multiple sources means it can provide the kind of 360-degree visibility that AppSec, DevOps, and Security teams need in today’s accelerated development environment.
By facilitating security visibility and remediation across the entire SDLC, ASPM can play a key role in building more secure cloud applications — and by extension, inform the creation of more secure cloud architectures. As more organizations embrace a “shift left” strategy, ASPM’s ability to identify software weaknesses that have a direct impact on cloud security — such as code deployed in containers or infrastructure-as-code modules that introduce misconfigurations — allows ASPM to strengthen security in a more expansive, comprehensive way than CSPM.
Of course, not all ASPM solutions deliver the same level of cloud visibility or ability to correlate data. You can learn more about why that matters here.
