Infrastructure security has long been about protecting networks, hosts, and cloud platforms. Application security focuses on securing APIs, data flows, and business logic to protect critical assets. Both approaches are critical, but they can’t provide complete protection on their own. When isolated from each other, there is a higher risk that attackers can exploit the security gaps in either layer, which is why workload identities should be employed to serve as a bridge that unifies both layers.
The Two Security Worlds: Infrastructure vs. Application
Infrastructure security is about protecting the foundation, including measures such as network segmentation, least-privilege identity and access management (IAM) roles, container isolation, and applying zero-trust principles at the infrastructure level. Application security works higher up in the stack, closer to data and user interactions. It deals with authentication, authorization, token management, session handling, and API protection.