Supply Chain Security: SBOMs, Dependency Analysis, and SLSA

Part of the Cybersecurity Skills Guide — This article is one deep-dive in our complete guide series.

By HADESS Team | February 28, 2026 | Updated: February 28, 2026 | 5 min read

Your software is only as secure as everything it depends on. Modern applications pull in hundreds of third-party libraries, base images, and build tools. Each dependency is a trust decision. Supply chain attacks exploit this trust — compromising a single popular package can affect thousands of downstream projects.

Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)

An SBOM is an inventory of every component in your software — direct dependencies, transitive dependencies, their versions, and their licenses. Two standard formats dominate:

SPDX (ISO/IEC 5962:2021) — originally focused on licensing, now covers security use cases. Widely used in compliance-driven industries.

CycloneDX — built for security from the start. Supports vulnerability references, service definitions, and composition analysis.

Generate SBOMs automatically during your build process. Syft produces SBOMs from container images and source code. Trivy generates CycloneDX SBOMs alongside vulnerability scans. Integrate SBOM generation into CI/CD so every release has a current inventory.

SBOMs only provide value when you act on them. Feed your SBOM into vulnerability databases (OSV, NVD) to identify known issues. Track components across products so you can respond quickly when a new vulnerability drops.

Dependency Analysis

Dependency confusion attacks exploit how package managers resolve names. An attacker publishes a malicious package to a public registry with the same name as your internal package, and the package manager installs the public version instead.

Defenses: use scoped packages (npm), configure your package manager to only pull internal packages from your private registry, and pin all dependency versions. For Python, configure --index-url to point to your private registry and --extra-index-url only when explicitly needed.

Review dependency update diffs. Dependabot and Renovate automate updates, but auto-merging without review is dangerous. Look for changes in install scripts, new network calls, and obfuscated code.

Vendor Risk Assessment

Third-party vendors run code in your environment, access your data, or operate infrastructure you depend on. Assess them before onboarding:

• Request SOC 2 Type II reports or ISO 27001 certification
• Review their incident history and response track record
• Evaluate their own dependency management and update practices
• Define data handling requirements in contracts

Reassess vendors annually and whenever they have a security incident. Maintain an inventory of vendor access — who has access to what, through which integration, and is it still needed.

SLSA Framework

SLSA (Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts) defines a maturity model for build integrity:

• Level 1: Build process is documented and generates provenance
• Level 2: Build service is hosted, provenance is authenticated
• Level 3: Build platform is hardened, provenance is non-falsifiable

Start by generating build provenance — a signed attestation of what was built, from which source, by which builder. GitHub Actions supports SLSA provenance generation through the slsa-github-generator project. Sigstore provides free code signing through Cosign for container images and Gitsign for commits.

Verify provenance on consumption, not just generation. Use cosign verify-attestation to check container image provenance before deploying.

Related Career Paths

Supply chain security is a defining skill for DevSecOps and Product Security Engineer career paths. Both roles own the pipeline security that keeps supply chain attacks out of production.

Next Steps

• Assess your supply chain security knowledge with the skills assessment
• Browse the skills library for related DevSecOps and build security topics
• Plan your career progression with the certificate roadmap

Related Guides in This Series

• Agile Security: Embedding Security in Sprints and Development Cycles — HADESS | 2026
• AI/ML Security: Adversarial Attacks, Model Poisoning, and Prompt Injection — HADESS | 2026
• Compliance Management: SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and HIPAA — HADESS | 2026

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to learn this skill?

Most practitioners build working proficiency in 4-8 weeks of dedicated study with hands-on practice. Mastery takes longer and comes primarily through on-the-job experience.

Do I need certifications for this skill?

Certifications validate your knowledge to employers but are not strictly required. Hands-on experience and portfolio projects often carry more weight in technical interviews. Check the certification roadmap for relevant options.

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Explore the career path explorer to see which roles require this skill and how it fits into different cybersecurity specializations.

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HADESS Team consists of cybersecurity practitioners, hiring managers, and career strategists who have collectively spent 50+ years in the field.