You know when you go in search of picking cloud security, one of the biggest challenges is that almost every vendor offers the same list of promises. Different providers perceive certain factors differently; capabilities like “visibility”, “protection”, and “real-time” mean different things to different vendors. You only find out about vendors’ thinking once you’ve signed the contract, and then you’re locked in.
For instance, real-time is kept in default by vendors, whereas others like Wiz provide it as a distinct module so that you can add it on top of the core platform. None of the approaches is good or bad, but if you know which one you are going to take, mattress alot. And asking a few questions helps you sort things before you make any kind of commitments.
So, let’s see some evaluation questions that you can ask potential CNAPP vendors. It becomes easy to assess if you already know the answers before becoming a customer.
When stakeholders are asked to identify a cloud security solution for their enterprise, they usually turn to feature lists and sales decks to find out details. But these materials tend to be filled with buzzwords that hide the true differences between solutions.
The following questions are designed to surface the real discrepancies that get buried beneath marketing language.
Scanning for potential risks like misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities is a baseline capability for cloud security platforms. But the best options go further than this. A top cloud security solution should also be able to detect threats in progress and spot suspicious activity live on running systems.
Wiz is a good example. Its core strength lies in risk detection and prioritization, but the Wiz Sensor add-on also delivers real-time runtime surveillance. Ask the vendors you’re considering if they can monitor live workloads for malicious activity, as well as identify conditions that can lead to a breach.
It’s important to note that some runtime security tools stop attacks, but others are designed to alert you to suspicious activity and leave your security teams to choose how to respond. The distinction can have a significant effect on your response times and overall risk.
Make sure to ask whether the platform can take automated action like blocking processes, quarantining workloads, and enforcing security policies, or whether they are limited to identification.
Prisma Cloud is an example of a vendor that offers active runtime enforcement features. Falco, on the other hand, focuses on alerts and doesn’t block suspicious behaviour.
Some real-time detection technology, like eBPF, only works on Linux environments. Windows environments need a completely different method, so you can’t assume that a Linux-first platform will deliver the same visibility or protection for your Windows workloads.
CrowdStrike has directly addressed this gap by designing its cross-platform endpoint security platform to provide consistent protection for both Windows and Linux operating platforms.
Ask vendors upfront if any features are unavailable or implemented uniquely in Linux or Windows.
You’d be surprised by how quickly attackers begin probing newly-created cloud resources. They attract malicious actors as soon as they are exposed to the internet, so even a few minutes delay before security monitoring begins can leave critical gaps in your security.
This makes it important to inquire about how quickly platforms can discover and begin monitoring new cloud resources. Specifically ask vendors whether runtime detection starts automatically or requires additional deployment procedures.
As cloud environments become more dynamic, the speed at which a platform can protect newly created workloads is an increasingly important evaluation factor.
Real-time protection isn’t always bundled into the upfront offering by design. Sometimes it’s provided as an extra purchase and implementation.
There’s no inherent gain to real-time protection being part of the bundle rather than an add-on; what matters is whether the vendor is open about what’s included in the price.
It’s crucial to ask exactly which runtime protection capabilities are included out of the box and which require separate licensing or implementation. For example, Aqua bundles active runtime protection into its core platform, while Wiz offers it independently. The answers help you differentiate the true cost, complexity, and time to value of each solution.
Cloud security platforms aren’t always built to protect every environment consistently. Some are developed specifically for cloud-native infrastructure and treat on-prem or hybrid systems as an afterthought, when at all.
It’s important to find out if a given platform includes the environments where your workloads actually operate. For instance, Orca offers an agentless-first approach that’s optimized for cloud, while others are designed for VMs and on-prem as well as the cloud.
Ask vendors which ones are fully supported, and if any workloads require different tools, agents, or processes.
A newer product isn’t automatically less capable, but it’s still worth knowing how mature the underlying technology actually remains. The company’s age won’t tell you enough on its own. What matters more is how long that technology has actually been running in production, under real circumstances.
When you ask a vendor how long they’ve offered runtime protection, follow up by asking how many deployments they’ve been through and what’s changed along the process.
Sysdig is a good case study here. The company itself is a relatively new name in cloud security, but its runtime detection runs on eBPF and the open-source Falco project, which has been in production since 2016. So the brand is young, even if the technology underneath it isn’t.
It can be really difficult to identify the cloud security solution that is the best option for your needs, environment, and business work.
Visibility-first platforms like Wiz and Orca are the best choices for real-time protection in a CNAPP strategy. Also, Aqua and Prisma Cloud are good alternatives if active runtime enforcement is your need. And if you are looking for cross-platform protection with a company with a long track record, you should check CrowdStrike and Sysdig.
Raising the right evaluation questions lets you look beyond the marketing stuff and decide which vendor is meeting your priorities.
