Microsoft Defender Cloud Security Posture Management
Focus on your most critical risks first, across multicloud environments, with contextual cloud security posture management (CSPM).
New capabilities designed for the era of AI
Innovate boldly with built-in security throughout the application lifecycle. Secure AI, data, and compute workloads across your multicloud environment with new, comprehensive cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) capabilities.
Reduce critical risks with contextual CSPM
Gain full visibility, contextual insights, and built-in workflows to remediate the most critical risks across clouds with Defender CSPM.
Monitor your multicloud security posture
Get continuous security assessments of your resources running across DevOps pipelines, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and on-premises.
Prioritize risks with contextual insights
Identify your most critical risks with insights from the security operations center (SOC), DevOps, APIs, Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management (EASM), and Microsoft Purview, all in a single view.
Get agent-based and agentless vulnerability scanning
Get continuous, real-time monitoring with agentless vulnerability scanning and gain deeper visibility from built-in agents.
Maintain compliance with multicloud benchmarks
Centralize and assess your cloud security compliance against industry standards, regulatory frameworks, and multicloud benchmarks, such as CIS, ISO and NIST, with 450+ built-in assessments.
Reduce risk by knowing the context
Gain full visibility into your security and compliance posture and understand the most important risks with Defender Cloud Security Posture Management.
Key capabilities
Reduce your risk with Defender Cloud Security Posture Management.
Measure your security posture with Microsoft Secure Score
Gain in-depth and continuous assessments of the security of your cloud resources running in DevOps pipelines, Azure, Amazon Web Service, and Google Cloud Platform.
Gain visibility and contextual insights
Get connected insights generated by the cloud security graph spanning different workloads, such as DevOps, data sensitivity, APIs, Microsoft Defender EASM, and identity.
Mitigate risks with proactive cyberattack path analysis
Use graph-based cyberattack path analysis to explore risk and surface contextual cyberthreat data to help prioritize remediation and save mitigation time.
Manage security policies and simplify compliance
Centrally manage security policies across your cloud workloads and APIs and follow best practices with benchmarks for multicloud security compliance.
Implement security governance
Define and manage security governance rules at scale. Assign and track responsibility with a central view to improve organizational efficiency.
Enhance your data and AI security posture
Get contextual insights into AI services and sensitive data exposure in posture management. Reduce sensitive data and AI risks by identifying weak spots.
Infrastructure as code security
Enable the security of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates and container images to minimize cloud misconfigurations reaching production environments.
Code-to-runtime remediation
Use code-to-runtime context to prioritize critical security fixes. Assign ownership by triggering custom workflows that feed directly into developer tools.
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Industry trends in cloud security posture management
Learn how to gain greater visibility and strengthen your cloud-native security posture across clouds and development pipelines.
Industry research and recognition
Microsoft Security is a recognized industry leader.
Frost Radar™: Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms
Microsoft named a leader in the CNAPP market by Frost & Sullivan.1
IDC MarketScape Report: CNAPP
Microsoft named a leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform 2025 Vendor Assessment.2
The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Companies deploying Defender for Cloud achieved a 117 percent ROI over three years and a payback period of less than six months, according to a study commissioned by Microsoft.3
See what our customers are saying
Related products
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Defender for Cloud
Protect multicloud and hybrid environments with comprehensive security across the full lifecycle, from code to runtime.
Defender External Attack Surface Management
See your business the way a cyberattacker does.
Explore more resources
Secure your AI applications
Explore how to gain visibility, reduce risk, and safeguard your AI workloads from emerging threats.
Cloud security posture management concepts
Improve your security posture by better understanding the security policies, initiatives, and recommendations in Defender for Cloud.
AI, the missing piece of the CNAPP puzzle
Discover how you can tackle complex threats and boost team efficiency using AI and cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) in this CSO article.
Deploy and secure AI
Find out the steps your organization can take to secure AI apps in this Fast Chat on the Dark Reading website.
Modern AI security challenges during migration
Learn about the key security elements organizations should prioritize when migrating their AI stack to the cloud in this SC Media article.
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- [1] Frost & Sullivan, Frost Radar: Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms, 2024: A Benchmarking System to Spark Companies to Action - Innovation That Fuels New Deal Flow and Growth Pipelines, November 2024.
- [2] “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform 2025 Vendor Assessment” by Philip Bues and Frank Dickson, June 2025, IDC Doc #: US53549925.
- [3] Forrester Consulting, The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Defender For Cloud, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, August 2024, updated January 2025. Results are for a composite organization based on interviewed customers.
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