Software supply chain security is fast becoming a critical aspect of enterprises. CISOs can fight it by must begin with a checklist for planning the stack by identifying security tool categories.
As software supply chain security programs advance, they face varying risks. This advancement is happening due to increased visibility and transparency into existing chain mechanisms and codes.
However, technological innovation is also bringing frequent security breaches to security tools. This harms the niche supply chain software. While there are ways out of this, CISOs must carefully consider tools before buying them.
Value of Software Supply Chain Security
Software supply chain attacks have increased since the digitalization of the supply chain. Statista reports in Year-over-year (YoY) increase in open source software (OSS) supply chain attacks worldwide from 2020 to 2022 say that in 2022, there was a 742% increase in open source software (OSS) supply chain attacks.
As development pipelines become more complex with CI/CD tools and open-source codes, cybercriminals have a huge attack surface to target software security patches. However, the original software supply chain security has updated third-party code and contains no malicious code or vulnerabilities.
If attacks occur, CISOs can consider the following security tool categories to install the latest security patches.
The Categories to Focus
Software supply chain security tools categories will help CISOs create a checklist to identify the most suitable security solution stack. It includes important tool categories and features security leaders need.
Code Scanning and Pen Tests
Securing the software supply chain is important because legacy app sec codes are more vulnerable to security attacks. However, the available Appsec code scanning tools are vital and play a crucial solution stack.
Tools such as IAST (interactive application security testing), RASP (runtime application scanning protection), DAST (dynamic application security testing), and SAST (static application security testing) can help test the coder. These tools will also offer more checkpoints into third-party code to reduce risks during the check.
Software composition analysis (SCA) or software bill of materials (SBOM) testing tools will not restrict severe security risks because they rely on previously identified vulnerabilities. For this, security leaders can also use pen tests to spot threats. Pen testing works on multiple layers of security in software through code scanning. They practice a thorough application penetration assessment to identify vulnerable code used.
Enrichment of SBOM
As organizations build their SBOMs, proper management and enrichment will be essential to secure the software supply chain. Adding vulnerability exploitability exchange (VEX) information will also be crucial to contextualize SBOMs.
The OpenSSL Scorecard data and exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) help enhance security stacks for the software supply chain. In addition, only aggregating SBOM information and its functions for business will be a growing concern for security leaders. So, CISOs must look for these features and categories in SCA+ type tooling and open-source tools. They will also need to define their category-defining methods to keep software secure.
Secrets Scanning and Management
Shared secrets scanning and management is a fast-moving security tools category. They serve optimum security solutions for the software supply chain. Secret source codes are frequently embedded in configuration files and infrastructure codes. Strong code scanning and management are needed to function adequately, as they are still frequently available in development and live environments.
Secrets such as credential files, passwords, private keys, and API tokens don’t require a source control repository. It is because attackers are targeting software development systems, open-source codes, and DevOps to compromise software supply chains. That makes software engineering leaders protect software by adopting several processes.
A management tool to securely impose access controls and store, encrypt, and manage assets is necessary. It is a fundamental tooling category security leaders should focus on, as attackers can leverage shared secrets to compromise an organization’s software supply chain.
Dependency Management and Analysis
It is another security category tool combining SCA and SBOM and holds severe software supply chain security problems.
CISOs and their teams will need better ways to analyze and manage the hidden levels of dependencies across APIs, applications, CI/CD pipeline components, and infrastructure as code. Some security tools include dependency planning tools. These tools boost the performance and resilience of security software.
In addition, SCAs and SBOM management tools feature as a ‘dependency lifecycle management’ solution. CISOs can find the category helpful while building or partnering to get reliable software supply chain security tools.
Code Signing
Code signing is another best practice that ensures the integrity of code and containers as developers commit and deploy software. The process builds strong internal controls against threat attacks and data tampering. It also builds customer trust in using software for supply chains.
Code signing targets threats in the software supply chain. Its abilities detect attackers alongside and mitigate harmed codes immediately. CISOs must then choose the right security to establish controls across supply chain software development.
Also Read: Top Cyber Threats to Retail Industry
CI/CD Pipeline Security
The continuous integration or delivery pipeline of security solutions is a part of the software’s security category. Developers depend on it to produce security codes to build a good supply chain security program. By including CI/CD policy and governance management, CISOs can implement privileged access control and strong authentication across supply chain software to tighten security.
IaC Security and CNAPP
Testing infrastructure and deploying code is also essential to the supply chain software security. Consequently, CISOs must consider infrastructure-as-code (IaC) scanning and security tools for broader supply chain security initiatives. These tools link software supply chain security tooling and cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP).
CNAPP offers supply chain security support, including container visibility and runtime security. As containers are a growing attack target in the software supply chain, runtime security measures can backstop the supply mechanism, rectify the threats, and resume operations in time. This is why infrastructure-as-code (IaC) scanning should run continuously to scan harmful codes interrupting the supply mechanism.
For more such updates follow us on Google News ITsecuritywire News. Please subscribe to our Newsletter for more updates.
