As the software bill of materials (SBOM) becomes ubiquitous for compliance and security purposes, what has previously been a nice-to-have option is fast becoming indispensable. If you want to do business with significant partners, such as public and federal organizations, and if you want to grow your business by floating your company or engaging in M&A activity, then you’re going to need SBOMs. This demand is driven by two key trends, one technical and the other legislative.

The cybersecurity landscape is witnessing a phenomenon that has come to be known as the “Great Resignation” among Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs). The challenges faced by CISOs in coping with ever-increasing regulations, compliance mandates, and the need for skilled resources have reached a tipping point. Coupled with a lack of cooperation from the C-suite, these factors have led to a surge in burnout among CISOs.

One often-overlooked risk in the bustling ecosystem of open-source software are vulnerabilities introduced through software dependencies. We mention this because today, a malicious actor took over a RubyGems package name with more than two million downloads. Mend.io technology detected the package before it could be used for an attack, but the case of ‘gemnasium-gitlab-service‘ serves as an important reminder of the risk of neglecting dependency management.

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) team continuously release updates about cybersecurity best practices for new technologies. As of March 2023 all CIS Windows Server and Windows Workstation Benchmarks will be updated once a year to align with Microsoft’s update schedule. Major version updates that CIS will release (i.e., updating from v1.12.0 to v2.0.0) will account for significant changes in the operating system.

CIS Critical Security Control, known now as CIS Controls have recently been updated and revised in the CIS Controls v8 released by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). The CIS Controls are a collection of industry-recognized best practices for businesses dealing with data security risks. Such measures were created to make things easier and keep the IT operations and security teams attention on crucial tasks. In v8, CIS changes a little the perspective around baseline security and system hardening.