5 insights from Frost & Sullivan’s 2025 Frost Radar™ for Cloud Security Posture Management

Cloud security posture management (CSPM) is being redefined as two forces collide: Cloud environments are becoming more interconnected—spanning workloads, identities, data, APIs, and development pipelines—while security teams must reduce risk faster with fewer tools and less time. Frost Sullivan’s 2025 Frost Radar™ for Cloud Security Posture Management points to a structural shift: CSPM is no longer a periodic compliance exercise. It’s a continuous, risk‑based governance layer inside modern cloud native application protection platforms (CNAPPs). Frost Sullivan projects the CSPM market will grow from $2.82 billion in 2025 to $6.96 billion by 2030 at a 19.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR)—reflecting the growing shift from standalone posture tools to integrated, platform‑based approaches. Read the full Frost Sullivan report A cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP) brings together posture, workload protection, identity and entitlement management, and related controls to secure applications across the full lifecycle—from development through runtime operations. Frost Sullivan’s analysis also reinforces Microsoft’s position among leading CSPM providers, with strong performance across innovation and growth. This reflects Microsoft’s approach to unifying posture management with workload protection, identity, and data security as part of a broader CNAPP platform—aligning directly with how CSPM is evolving from point-in-time compliance to continuous risk management. Below are five key insights from the Frost Radar and what they mean for security leaders navigating today’s cloud threat landscape. 1. CSPM is becoming the governance layer for CNAPP Frost Sullivan research suggests CSPM is evolving beyond a standalone tool focused on configuration hygiene. Instead, it increasingly serves as the entry point and governance backbone for CNAPP—integrating posture signals with workload protection, identity, data security, and security operations center (SOC) workflows. Modern CSPM solutions are expected to: Provide continuous visibility across infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). Correlate misconfigurations, identities, vulnerabilities, and data exposure. Feed high‑fidelity posture context into runtime protection and incident response workflows. What to look for Unified visibility that connects posture findings with workload, identity, and data signals—so investigations don’t begin from scratch when posture risk turns into an incident. Frost notes that by 2030, CSPM is expected to become less a standalone market and more a foundational governance layer inside CNAPP platforms—unifying code‑to‑cloud policy and feeding posture context into runtime and SOC workflows 2. The market is moving beyond compliance to risk ‑ based prioritization Compliance coverage is now table stakes. Frost highlights that for organizations to differentiate they need solutions that continuously assess risk, reduce