[Sandbox] Cloud Native Assurance Maturity Model (CNAMM)

[abdelsfane]

Application contact emails

abdel@devsecflow.com, francis@devsecflow.com

Project Summary

An automated maturity assessment framework to evaluate and enhance cloud native security posture across organizations.

Project Description

The Cloud Native Assurance Maturity Model (CNAMM) is a comprehensive framework that helps organizations measure and improve their cloud native security posture. It addresses a critical gap in the cloud native ecosystem by providing:

• A structured, evidence-based approach to assess security maturity across 8 critical business functions and 24 practice areas
• Context-aware scoring that considers industry requirements, regulatory obligations, and organizational scale
• Clear maturity progression paths from basic security controls to industry-leading practices
• Automated assessment tools with dashboards and visualizations
• Actionable insights for improving cloud native security capabilities

CNAMM is specifically designed for cloud native environments and provides practical guidance for implementing security controls in modern distributed architectures. By offering a standardized way to measure cloud native security maturity, CNAMM helps organizations make informed decisions about their security investments and cloud native adoption journey.

Org repo URL (provide if all repos under the org are in scope of the application)

N/A

Project repo URL in scope of application

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm

Additional repos in scope of the application

No response

Website URL

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm

Roadmap

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm/blob/main/docs/ROADMAP.md

Roadmap context

Our immediate focus is on establishing a strong foundation for community-driven development and framework evolution. Key priorities for 2025 include:

1. Community Development

• Establishing regular community meetings and communication channels
• Building contribution processes and documentation
• Growing adopter engagement and feedback loops

2. Framework Enhancement

• Incorporating early adopter feedback to refine assessment criteria
• Improving scoring methodologies based on real-world usage
• Developing additional industry-specific guidance

3. Tooling Improvements

• Enhancing the assessment toolkit based on user feedback
• Improving visualization and reporting capabilities
• Adding automated validation features

These priorities reflect our commitment to building a robust, community-driven framework while maintaining the flexibility to adapt based on community needs and emerging cloud native security requirements.

Long-term evolution will be guided by:

• Community feedback and contributions
• Emerging cloud native security practices
• Real-world implementation experiences
• Industry adoption patterns

Contributing Guide

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm/blob/main/docs/CONTRIBUTING.md

Code of Conduct (CoC)

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm/blob/main/docs/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Adopters

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm/blob/main/docs/ADOPTERS.md

Contributing or Sponsoring Org

devsecflow.com

Maintainers file

https://github.com/devsecflow/cnamm/blob/main/docs/MAINTAINERS.md

IP Policy

• If the project is accepted, I agree the project will follow the CNCF IP Policy

Trademark and accounts

• If the project is accepted, I agree to donate all project trademarks and accounts to the CNCF

Why CNCF?

CNCF is the ideal home for CNAMM for several key reasons:

1. Mission Alignment: CNAMM's goal of enabling secure cloud native adoption directly supports CNCF's mission of making cloud native computing ubiquitous.
2. Community Expertise: The CNCF community's deep expertise in cloud native security will help evolve the framework to meet emerging needs.
3. Project Integration: Deep integration with CNCF projects will provide practical implementation paths for security controls and maturity improvements.
4. Vendor Neutrality: CNCF stewardship will ensure CNAMM remains vendor-neutral and focused on community benefit.
5. Global Reach: CNCF's global presence will help drive framework adoption and gather diverse perspectives for improvement.

Being part of CNCF will accelerate CNAMM's evolution while ensuring it remains a truly community-driven framework for cloud native security maturity assessment.

Benefit to the Landscape

CNAMM enhances the CNCF landscape by:

1. Providing a consistent way to measure security maturity across cloud native deployments.
2. Helping organizations understand their readiness for adopting various CNCF projects.
3. Creating clear connections between security objectives and CNCF project implementations.
4. Offering guidance for progressive security enhancement as organizations scale their cloud native adoption.
5. Enabling organizations to benchmark their security capabilities against industry peers.

CNAMM acts as a bridge between security requirements and CNCF projects, helping organizations build comprehensive security programs using cloud native technologies.

Cloud Native 'Fit'

CNAMM embodies cloud native principles in several ways:

1. Assessment Areas: Covers cloud native-specific concerns like container security, service mesh deployment, and API security
2. Automation Focus: Emphasizes automated assessment, continuous monitoring, and programmatic security controls
3. Scalable Architecture: Designed for distributed systems and microservices architectures
4. DevSecOps Integration: Promotes security automation and integration throughout the development lifecycle
5. Adaptive Security: Supports dynamic environments and evolving threat landscapes

The framework's structure directly maps to cloud native architecture components, operational patterns and as well as the Cloud Native Maturity Model.

Cloud Native 'Integration'

CNAMM complements several CNCF projects by providing assessment criteria and maturity guidance for their implementation:

• Kubernetes: Container orchestration security assessment
• Istio/Linkerd: Service mesh security evaluation criteria
• OPA/Gatekeeper: Policy enforcement maturity measurement
• Falco: Runtime security monitoring assessment
• SPIFFE/SPIRE: Identity management maturity evaluation
• Harbor: Container registry security assessment
• TUF/Notary: Supply chain security measurement
• Cilium: Network security control assessment

The framework helps organizations understand their readiness for these projects and measure the effectiveness of their implementations.

Cloud Native Overlap

While CNAMM complements existing CNCF security projects, it fills a unique role as a comprehensive maturity assessment framework. It doesn't overlap directly with existing projects, but rather provides guidance for their effective implementation and measurement of security outcomes.

Similar projects

N/A

Landscape

No

Business Product or Service to Project separation

While DevSecFlow may develop commercial offerings around CNAMM in the future:

1. The core framework, assessment criteria, and Excel toolkit will remain open source and freely available
2. Commercial offerings will focus on additional tooling, training, and consulting services
3. Framework development will be guided by the CNCF community
4. Clear separation between open source and commercial components will be maintained
5. All key framework decisions will be made through open community processes

Project Domain Technical Review

No.

CNCF Contacts

Reached out to Dave Z. and Chris A. on Slack who shared resources to submit this project.

Additional information

No response

[jberkus]

This looks like a proposal for a TAG-Security subproject/WG, rather than a CNCF project. It contains neither code nor impementable standards.

Have you spoken to TAG-Security about it?

[abdelsfane]

@jberkus I briefly shared details with Dave Zolotusky on Slack and he referred me to sandbox. I am happy to move this issue to Tag Security. Can you tell me the best way to go about that?

[JustinCappos]

Reach out on the #tag-security channel on the CNCF slack. This is a good way to get the ball rolling on this!