Software Supply Chain Security

Software supply chain security starts with knowing exactly what you ship and what you consume. Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) give you that inventory, covering first-party code, vendor software, and every transitive dependency in between. Once you can see the entire chain, you can manage risk, prove compliance, and share trustworthy evidence with customers or regulators.

SBOM Observer is SBOM-centric by design. Every workflow begins with accurate SBOMs, then layers policy checks, attestation analysis, and sharing workflows so you can scale transparency without losing control.

Why SBOMs anchor supply chain security

An SBOM is the master ingredient label for your software line. It lists every component, version, and supplier across your own code and anything you buy, rent, or borrow from vendors. That single list powers license reviews, builds the baseline for vulnerability triage, and lets you spot suspicious surprises before they become outages.

With the inventory in hand, you can respond the moment a CVE or policy change lands. Instead of guessing “Are we exposed?” you can answer with confidence: “This library shows up in these three services and affects these customers.”

SBOMs also become receipts in every vendor conversation. You can require them from suppliers, compare what they promised to what they delivered, and keep regulators or customers satisfied that you know exactly what is running. OWASP Top 10 2025 (A03: Software Supply Chain Failures) literally leads with “Know your SBOM and manage it centrally,” and Observer makes that directive a daily habit.

Regulatory drivers for transparency

Security rules across regions echo the same idea: you cannot defend what you cannot inventory. NIS2, DORA, and CRA use different legal language, yet all of them ask for proof that you understand your components, can assess their risk, and can fix issues on a deadline. Public-sector and industry buyers are following suit by placing SBOM clauses in tenders so suppliers must prove transparency before they win the deal.

Frameworks like SLSA add provenance to the mix. They track who built a package, where it was built, and how it moved through the pipeline. Pairing that provenance with SBOM data paints a complete picture: ingredients plus origin story. Regardless of the regulation, the work reduces to a predictable loop: inventory, assess, remediate, provide evidence. Observer automates each phase with SBOMs as the shared source of truth.

Observer SBOM-centric loop

Observer operationalizes that loop with one SBOM-first rhythm:

1. Generate SBOMs from your codebases, containers, and build systems via the Observer CLI.
2. Analyze those SBOMs alongside SLSA provenance, VEX statements, CBOMs, and other attestations to surface vulnerabilities, policy gaps, and integrity issues.
3. Enforce policies that block risky releases or trigger targeted alerts inside CI/CD before anything reaches production.
4. Prove compliance by exporting evidence packages that map controls and remediations to frameworks such as NIS2, DORA, and CRA.
5. Share SBOMs and attestations with customers, vendors, and internal stakeholders. Learn more in What is SBOM Observer?.

Combining SBOMs with other attestations gives you both ingredient lists and trustworthy build metadata. Observer ingests SLSA provenance, VEX, and other CycloneDX or SPDX-based documents so policies can reason about origin, exploitability, and deployment context together.

Getting started checklist

1. Identify your role: Decide whether you are a consumer, a supplier, or both. Consumers must demand SBOMs, while suppliers must produce them. The reality for many teams is “both,” so plan accordingly.
2. Set supplier requirements: Add SBOM and provenance language to procurement templates so vendors must deliver their inventories up front. That way you always know what third-party software is running in your environments and can verify they meet contractual promises.
3. Ingest what you already have: Pull SBOMs from internal teams, legacy scanners, or build systems into Observer so your own codebase inventory sits next to the vendor SBOMs. Together they become a holistic map of everything in production.
4. Track vulnerabilities first: Start with CVE visibility across that combined inventory, then layer in license, operational, or contractual policies once the basics feel boring.
5. Scale automation: When you trust the data, turn on CI/CD gates, share filtered SBOM views with customers, and link Observer evidence exports to audit workflows.

Next steps

• Review Policies & Evaluations to see how Observer automates compliance once your SBOM inventory is in place.
• Jump into the Quickstart or explore the live demo to experience the workflow firsthand.

Software supply chain security is ultimately about confidence. By treating SBOMs and attestations as first-class assets, Observer keeps every dependency within view so you can prove that your products and the vendors behind them meet the transparency bar regulators and customers now expect.