Wiz Adds Integration Platform to Improve Cybersecurity Visibility – Source: securityboulevard.com

Wiz this week unveiled a platform that provides bi-directional integration between its namesake cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) and third-party cybersecurity platforms.

At the same time, Wiz also announced it signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to improve cloud cybersecurity. As part of that agreement, Wiz is committing to exploring artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities built on AWS, including the ability to submit queries about cloud environments in free text leveraging the Amazon Neptune graph database.

Alon Schindel, director of data and threat research for Wiz, said the Wiz Integration Platform would make it possible for cybersecurity teams to view data collected by another platform via the Wiz console or enable cybersecurity teams that are using another platform to consume data collected via the Wiz CNAPP.

Third-party partners that are sharing data with Wiz include Armis, Axonius, Cyware, Hyperproof, IBM Security, Laminar, RedScale, Salt Security, SentinelOne and Vulcan Cyber.

The overall goal is to improve the level of visibility being provided to cybersecurity teams that typically employ multiple tools and platforms, said Schindel.

In addition, a CNAPP provides the foundation for applying artificial intelligence (AI) to a large enough pool of data to further automate cybersecurity processes, he noted.

As a category of security platforms coined by Gartner, CNAPPs aggregate two types of security platforms: Cloud security posture management (CSPM) platforms—already used by many organizations to surface misconfigurations and other vulnerabilities that cybercriminals could potentially exploit—and cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP) that protect a workload running on either a virtual machine or encapsulated in a container.

Interest in CNAPPs has risen sharply as the number of workloads deployed in the cloud and concerns about the total cost of cybersecurity have increased. Many cybersecurity teams now view CNAPPs as a means to consolidate a range of capabilities provided today by individual products that are rapidly becoming features of a larger CNAPP.

That approach promises to reduce the total cost of cybersecurity. There is generally less pressure to reduce the cost of cybersecurity than other IT functions, but as always, cybersecurity teams are looking for ways to become more efficient by, for example, reducing the time and effort required to integrate disparate platforms. Most organizations also continue to be shorthanded in terms of cybersecurity expertise. One of the reasons organizations don’t acquire another cybersecurity tool or platform is they don’t have anybody to manage it. A CNAPP provides a centralized approach to managing cybersecurity that is simpler to extend as additional capabilities are added.

It’s too early to tell how quickly organizations are transitioning to CNAPPs, but as the number of attack surfaces that need to be defended continues to increase, the need for a different approach to managing cybersecurity has become self-evident. That’s especially critical as the attack surface that needs to be defended continues to expand. The number of application workloads that have been distributed across everything from multiple cloud services to internet-of-things (IoT) environments has never been greater.

One way or another, the need to manage cybersecurity at scale will bring about change. The only issue that remains to be resolved now is the pace at which that change will occur.