Frost Radar(TM) - Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms, 2026

Cloud adoption globally continues to expand the enterprise attack surface, making cloud risk more dynamic, distributed, and operationally complex than earlier posture-centric models assumed. Modern cloud-native security needs more than a traditional shift-left approach that requires early security integration throughout the application development life cycle and security management for the cloud where application deployment and execution occur. Cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) are evolving from broad platform consolidation narratives into unified cloud risk operations layers that correlate posture, workload, vulnerability, identity, application, API, data, and emerging AI signals into a unified operating framework for risk prioritization, threat investigation, and remediation. They are no longer solutions that provide basic visibility, posture data, and compliance reporting. Demand has been increasing for a unified code-to-cloud-to-runtime and to SOC operating model. AI security is moving rapidly into CNAPP buying cycles, though remaining as adjacent capabilities. Nonetheless, it is expected to become more tightly integrated into broader cloud security platforms and workflows in the next couple of years.

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