Aqua Security launched its cloud native-focused software-as-a-service (SaaS) security tool in Europe. Designed to protect cloud-native applications and stop cloud-native attacks, the solution builds on its hosted services already being deployed by customers in the region; Aqua’s CyberCenter threat intelligence and vulnerability information database for scanning, and Dynamic Threat Analysis (DTA).

The service provides runtime protection and threat monitoring policies for workloads, including managed container platforms, serverless, and virtual machines in public cloud and on-premises. European customers subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can use the SaaS service, based in the Frankfurt region, while conforming to data privacy and residency requirements.

Under the GDPR, SaaS providers need to provide adequate protection and safeguards over customers’ personal data, and ensure no personal data is transferred outside of the EU to a jurisdiction without “equivalent data protections.” 

“Our customer base in Europe is growing rapidly, and we are committed to meeting regional needs and requirements,” Arne Jacobsen, senior director of sales EMEA at Aqua, said in a statement. “Aqua SaaS expands the deployment options, and now customers can adopt our integrated and unified platform to protect the full cloud-native application lifecycle and do so with the assurance of regional compliance.”

Jacobsen told SDxCentral Aqua leverages a network of honeypots deployed around the world and catalogs more than 80,000 cloud native attacks every month. With eBPF probes deployed in these honeypots, the team sees, evaluates, and codifies these attacks, and then productizes the result within its platform.

Later in July Aqua is set to announce new capabilities to its workload protection that will advance runtime security and protection, according to Jacobsen.

More and more enterprises are moving away from traditional infrastructure to cloud-native applications. Palo Alto Networks’ 2022 State of Cloud Native Security report found that 69% of organizations now host more than half of their workloads in the cloud.

But as the global cloud footprint broadens, so does the attack surface. Aqua Security’s 2022 Cloud Native Threat Report found that in 2021, backdoors were encountered in 54% of attacks, an increase of nine percentage points compared with 2020. Additionally, the usage of worms rose by 10 points to 51% of attacks, compared to 41% the previous year. 

In order to mitigate attacks becoming more sophisticated, Aqua says practitioners can adopt three security strategies; ensure runtime security, layer Kubernetes security, and implement scanning in development.