In the aftermath of supply chain breaches against SolarWinds and Codecov, organizations are focused on protecting their software from malicious tampering and compromise. Addressing the complexity of software development and potential security exposures has been top of mind. The complexity goes beyond traditional application security as the software supply chain encompasses and spans across different services, organizations, roles, and responsibilities.

The 2021 Log4Shell incident cast a bright light on open source software security — and especially on supply chain security. The 18 months following the incident brought a greater focus on open source software security than at any time in history. Organizations like the OpenSSF, AlphaOmega, and large technology companies are putting considerable resources towards tooling and education. But is open source software security actually improving? And where are efforts still falling short?

While perhaps new to AI researchers, supply chain attacks are nothing new to the world of cybersecurity. For those in the know, it has been best practice to verify the source and authenticity of downloads, package repositories, and containers. But human nature usually wins. As developers, our desire to move quickly to improve ease of use for users and customers can cause us to delay efforts to validate the software supply chain until we are forced to by our peers in compliance or security organizations.

Software and applications make the world go round. This naturally makes them a top attack target for threat actors, and highlights the importance of robust software supply chain compliance. But how do companies build and implement a compliance strategy that solves the challenges of modern application security? Let’s take a look.

Modern organizations are constantly striving to gain a competitive advantage by delivering software solutions at a remarkable pace. To achieve this, they heavily rely on open-source software (OSS) libraries and packages, which constitute a significant portion (80-90%) of their software solution. However, while open-source software offers numerous benefits, it also presents potential security challenges.

Cybersecurity is not an easy task. New threats are constantly emerging—in your IT infrastructure and that of your vendors and partners. But, as a cybersecurity leader, you can help your organization mitigate these threats if you adopt cyber risk exposure management practices. In this blog, we explore everything you need to know about how cyber risk exposure and management can help you reduce the risk of gaps and vulnerabilities in your network and across your third-party supply chain.

As software systems become more intricate and the use of third-party components increases, the security risks within the software supply chain also escalate. To combat these risks, organizations are turning to the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) as a valuable tool. This blog will guide you through the concept of SBOM and its impact on software supply chain security.

A relatively new way of strengthening your software supply chain security is to apply Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) in tandem with other tools such as software bills of materials (SBOMs), software composition analysis (SCA) for open source, and static application security testing (SAST) for proprietary code. Let’s take a look at what SLSA is and how its different levels work.

The pandemic highlighted the fragility of the global supply chain ecosystem. Now every company is striving to ensure they will never be crippled by unforeseen supply chain issues. Mentions of “supply chain” in US SEC-filed annual reports more than doubled from 2019 to 2021 to nearly 5,000 as chief supply chain officers were reluctantly escorted into boardroom discussions to explain the business risk to their company.

A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is a key cyber defense item — it identifies what’s in your software, applications, and code base so that you can detect and mitigate risk more effectively. This is useful when it comes to application security because companies can only detect and fix vulnerabilities if they know what’s there in the first place. SBOMs give you that visibility. Consequently, SBOMs are now a “must-have” tool for most companies.