Introduction
SBOM and your business should start forming close relationships as soon as possible. Now that the U.S. federal government requires SBOMs from all of its software vendors, there's a good chance companies of all sizes will follow that lead. Without a software bill of materials, potential users might not feel comfortable adopting your product. That is just the beginning of how SBOM and your business' success become more relevant by the week. In the following article, you will learn about several reasons it makes sense for your company to add SBOMs to every digital product.
Did you know that Packagecloud is the first package distribution platform to implement the SBOM framework?
Sign up now for a free Packagecloud trial so you can see the connection between SBOM and your business' success.
SBOM can help your developers streamline workflows
Developers do not always know what their team members add to their products. That is especially true within large organizations with several teams developing different pieces of software. For all you know, someone on the other side of the office has already built a feature that you want to add to a new product.
When you require developers to add SBOMs that list every component in the products they build, you can stop people from designing the same features more than once. Instead, your team members can look at the SBOMs, search for components that meet their needs, and tweak the existing code to match their product.
It often helps to maintain an SBOM for each product and a centralized repository that lists all of the organization's components. That way, employees can search the larger list or a specific product's list, depending on which they think will give them faster results. From this perspective, it's easy to see how SBOMs and business success work together. By saving time, you can complete projects sooner, speed up development timelines, and potentially reduce the size of some teams.
Customers will eventually expect an SBOM for every product
The SolarWinds hack proved just how sneakily a well-executed software supply chain attack could work. When hackers manage to slip code into the right piece of software, they can gain access to government agencies and some of the world's largest businesses.
The attack opened a lot of eyes to how much damage these attacks can cause. Now that the federal government requires SBOMs, expect private companies to follow suit. Malware already causes too many problems. No one wants to get hit by a software supply chain attack that could go unnoticed for weeks or months.
SBOMs and your business' success will depend on each other increasingly as more organizations require software bills of materials that list every open-source and proprietary component.
Start your free trial with Packagecloud to see how much easier it becomes to track OSS and proprietary components. Packagecloud has a history of working with open-source software because so many of them make development easier. Would you know whether OSS had a vulnerability, though? Packagecloud compares code with known vulnerabilities to protect you!
There are alternatives for securing software supply chains. A recent study from the Linux Foundation asked professionals about key activities for securing software supply chains. In order, the top responses include:
- Vulnerability reporting that is low touch and can scale
- SBOMs
- Required use of 2-factor authentication by developers and releasers
- Development of memory safe applications using programming languages that are memory safe
- Globally unique identification of specific software products
When broken down into groups of SBOM innovators, SBOM early adopters, and SBOM procrastinators, the priorities shifted. Not surprisingly, SBOM innovators put SBOMs at the top of their list. More surprisingly, SMOB early adopters put "Required use of 2-factor authentication by developers and releases" and "Development of memory safe applications using programming languages that are memory safe" at the top of their list. The two were so close that they essentially tied for first place. SBOM procrastinators listed "Vulnerability reporting that is low touch and can scale" as their top preference.
These results show that SBOM and your business' success likely depend on several approaches to preventing software supply chain attacks. Still, SBOMs need to play a critical role. After all, it was the second most important option among the entire group of survey respondents.
How Packagecloud can help
Packagecloud has several security features that can help you avoid software supply chain attacks. The platform scans for supply chain poisonings and trojan-horse attacks. These features make sure the packages you use are safe. Also, Packagecloud compares your packages to all known cybersecurity threats, ensuring nothing inside of your packages is vulnerable. If it spots a known vulnerability, it will alert you of the problem before adding the package to your repository.
Packagecloud can hold all of your packages in one place, allowing you control over exactly which packages you are using. Rather than using public repositories, you get hosted repositories and security features that help ensure only authorized users have access to your assets.
Use Packagecloud to keep your packages and your software supply chain fully secure. Would you like to see the platform in action?
Sign up for your Packagecloud free trial here so you can confidently decide whether it's the right code repository and package distribution platform for your organization. SBOM and your business can do great things together. Packagecloud just makes it easier.
