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.

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.

AppSec and Software Supply Chain Security are two terms more frequently used as part of DevOps, as well as when considering how to develop a security strategy. Software supply chain attacks are on the rise and organizations must brace for the strong possibility that their software supply chain will be a target–so much so that Gartner has projected that by 2025, supply chain risk management will be a key success driver for more than 50% of organizations.

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.

On the 31st of May 2023 a public warning was issued by MOVEit, regarding a critical SQL injection vulnerability found in in their systems. This vulnerability allowed malicious actors to gain access to the database. The flaw, known as CVE-2023-34362, was identified on the 2nd of June, but it had already been exploited four days before the alert. By the end of May, approximately 2,500 instances of MOVEit file transfers were discovered to be exposed online, primarily in the United States.