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.

Imagine the following scenario. A developer is alerted by an AI-powered application security testing solution about a severe security vulnerability in the most recent code version. Without concern, the developer opens a special application view that highlights the vulnerable code section alongside a display of an AI-based code fix recommendation, with a clear explanation of the corresponding code changes.

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.

So many things seem like a good idea at the time. The Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Decca Records rejecting The Beatles. “New” Coca-Cola. Blockbuster passing on buying Netflix. The formation of Nickelback. Just popping into Ikea for a “quick” look around. Of course, we know differently. And the same can be said about copying and pasting code.

We are excited to announce the inaugural edition of the Mend.io Open-Source Reliability Leaderboard! Powered by data from Renovate, the wildly popular open-source dependency management tool, the Leaderboard presents the top packages in terms of reliability across three of the most widely used languages.

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.

According to Mend.io research, the Apache 2.0 license is the most popular license of its kind, as 30% of open source licenses currently in use is Apache. Owing to its frequent use, it’s important to understand how the license works, its benefits, limitations, implications, and requirements. To help you, here are ten frequently asked questions about it.

The latest version of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, CVSS 4.0, entered its public preview phase at the 35th annual FIRST conference put on by FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams. An international confederation of computer incident response teams, FIRST writes the CVSS specification that plays such an important role in identifying and cataloging software and application vulnerabilities.

Modern applications are hugely dependent on open-source software. 80 percent of most organizations’ apps and code base is now open source, in some cases more. While this is great for swift development and innovation, it increases the possibility of vulnerabilities arising that bad actors can exploit, and it expands the potential attack surface.

Mend.io CEO Rami Sass, Jeff Martin, VP of product management, and CMO Arabella Hallawell recently sat down for a panel discussion on AppSec today. In this second of a two-part series, they get tactical, as they discuss seven best practices for building modern AppSec programs.