As the world of modern business evolves, spurred forward by emerging technologies, companies of all shapes and sizes face a similar evolution in compliance requirements.
On the side of the United States government, there’s a concerted effort to protect federal information systems through stronger security postures and more visibility of software supply chains.
Evidence of this lies in a recent directive issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). This directive facilitates a new level of vulnerability understanding by requiring on-demand asset discovery within 72 hours of a CISA request.
This leaves us in a world in which both companies and federal agencies revamp compliance strategies and seek out support for these endeavors.
This is where SBOMs play a particularly pivotal (and beneficial) role…
What Is An SBOM?
SBOM stands for “software bill of materials.”
In essence, an SBOM is an inventory of all software components, libraries, firmware, drivers, tools, and processes used to develop, build, and publish a software artifact.
Think of your business as a chef and your software as a dish. The SBOM would be the list of ingredients that make up the software components.
A strong SBOM will include nested descriptions of software artifact components and metadata, including information regarding licensing, persistent references, and more.
In the words of CISA.gov, a software bill of materials “has emerged as a key building block in software security and software supply chain risk management.”
For someone like a developer, an SBOM can be used to map and follow an entire development process, like a blueprint.
SBOMs have been highlighted by many, including President Biden by way of Executive Order, as a way to strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure.
Let’s take a look at how.
SBOMs Facilitate Greater Supply Chain Resiliency
Through the software supply chain, many different parts are connected. Agencies, softwares, systems, businesses—the supply chain is the thread that ties them all together.
That leaves the particularly scary potential for a single security breach to wreak havoc all the way down the supply chain.
While an SBOM can’t eliminate vulnerabilities itself, it can certainly help to identify previously hidden vulnerabilities, thereby allowing the relevant parties to take care of those would-be costly liabilities.
SBOMs Create a More Efficient Process Of Finding & Patching Vulnerabilities At Scale
Think about your car. There are thousands of that same type of car on the road, right?
What happens when it turns out there’s a defective part in your car? In theory, the manufacturer issues a recall and either replaces or fixes the defective part before an issue ever occurs on the road.
They’re able to do so thanks to keeping a bill of materials. They understand what’s in the car and how those parts affect one another.
Now think about the software supply chain and cybersecurity.
Through SBOMs, the cybersecurity industry will gain greater visibility into every aspect of the software. As we mentioned before, it’s like having a blueprint of a device or software in your hands.
Standardizing SBOMs makes it possible for security personnel to not only identify vulnerabilities, but also patch those vulnerabilities at scale. This is because manufacturers and developers will better understand the components of software installed on a device.
SBOMs Simplify Compliance
An SBOM can improve the efficiency of any compliance process because it combines open source and third-party software, bridging a previously sizable gap.
With an SBOM, you can determine whether or not you’re meeting compliance standards on the level of individual components because the information is already there.
Are you meeting software usage regulations? The SBOM makes it easy to know!
By blending and sharing both infrastructure and data, SBOMs have the potential to save agencies and businesses countless time and significant money by connecting departments, enhancing transparency, and helping developers and manufacturers find vulnerabilities early in the lifecycle of a software.
