Getting Started: Building Defense in Depth

Organizations approach prevention and detection from different starting points. Understanding what each platform provides helps teams build comprehensive cloud security.

What PSPM Provides

PSPM helps organizations systematically manage preventive controls:

Visibility into prevention posture. PSPM discovers and maps preventive controls across all four layers: Build (IaC scanning), Access (organization policies and SCPs), Config (secure defaults), Runtime (auto-remediation). Most organizations have scattered prevention with no unified view. PSPM makes existing prevention visible and quantifiable.

Simulation before enforcement. PSPM tests proposed preventive controls by querying cloud audit logs to understand impact before deployment. Teams see exactly what would be blocked, which accounts would be affected, and what exceptions might be needed. This transforms prevention from risky to confident.

Safe deployment orchestration. PSPM manages gradual rollout of preventive controls with monitoring modes, phased enforcement, systematic exception handling, and rollback capabilities. Prevention expands systematically rather than creating disruption.

Prevention effectiveness measurement. PSPM quantifies prevention through coverage metrics, blocked actions, and posture improvement over time. Organizations prove prevention value through data.

How CNAPP Enhances Prevention

When organizations deploy both platforms, CNAPP findings create a valuable feedback loop:

Finding volume reveals prevention opportunities. CNAPP shows which issues appear most frequently across the environment. High-volume, recurring misconfigurations represent natural prevention targets. Organizations use this data to prioritize which preventive controls to deploy first.

Pattern analysis identifies systematic gaps. When the same misconfigurations appear across teams, regions, or accounts, prevention becomes more valuable than repeated detection and remediation. CNAPP exposes these patterns; PSPM addresses them systematically.

Detection validates prevention effectiveness. CNAPP findings measure prevention impact - which issues decreased after prevention deployment, where gaps remain, how effective each prevention layer performs. This data proves prevention ROI and guides further expansion.

Key Principles

Organizations that successfully build prevention-detection defense in depth follow common patterns:

Start from your current state. Organizations begin from different positions. Some deploy CNAPP first for visibility, then add prevention to reduce noise. Others build prevention first, then add detection for validation. The starting point matters less than systematic expansion of prevention coverage.

Prove value early. Organizations typically begin with one or two high-impact preventive controls to demonstrate measurable results. Quick wins build organizational confidence before tackling more complex scenarios.

Create feedback loops where possible. When both platforms are deployed, CNAPP findings inform PSPM priorities and PSPM deployment reduces CNAPP noise. Teams that review combined metrics regularly optimize the prevention-detection balance based on outcomes.

Iterate systematically. Prevention coverage expands gradually through the five prevention practices: discover existing controls, analyze gaps, simulate before enforcement, deploy with orchestration, measure effectiveness. Organizations that follow systematic practices achieve better outcomes than those deploying prevention ad-hoc.

Building Defense in Depth

Prevention-detection balance develops iteratively. Organizations expand prevention coverage based on measured results. Security teams shift capacity from remediation coordination to strategic work. Detection capabilities focus on sophisticated threats requiring investigation.

Organizations achieve comprehensive cloud security through systematic prevention management and comprehensive detection - better outcomes than either approach delivers alone.