Codenotary today made available a preview of a centralized repository service for generating and storing software bills of materials (SBOMs) that makes it simpler to securely share them as necessary.
Moshe Bar, Codenotary CEO, said SBOMCenter will make it easier for organizations to operationalize SBOMs that are being created with greater frequency as the need for increased focus on securing software supply chains grows.
Currently available as a free trial, Codenotary’s SBOMCenter provides a way to create and store SBOMs in a way that ensures they have not been tampered with, noted Bar.
Implementing SBOMs can be a cumbersome process that can require changes to existing software development and procurement practices. The SBOMCenter provides a service for accessing SBOMs that are continuously updated using an immutable open source database that supports multiple SBOM formats and a tool the company developed that automatically generates SBOMs by adding a single line of code. That approach should make it simpler to identify what software components are running in a production environment any time a new zero-day vulnerability is discovered.
In a future update to SBOMCenter, the company said it plans to add vulnerability scanning, risk exposure scoring, alerts on newly discovered vulnerabilities and a policy enforcement engine that can be integrated with DevOps pipelines.
Awareness of the need for SBOMs has increased dramatically since the Biden administration’s executive order made it clear that federal agencies would require them from any software provider starting next year. Many enterprise IT organizations are likely to follow suit as part of a larger effort to better secure software supply chains in the wake of a series of high-profile cybersecurity breaches.
More recently, a National Cybersecurity Strategy paper published by the White House calls for increased liability for software developers that fail to exercise due cybersecurity diligence when building applications. It’s not clear if there will ever be a law on the books that would enable penalties to be applied, but the general mood is clearly shifting toward holding organizations that build software more accountable for cybersecurity issues that might arise.
It’s not yet clear how far down the path organizations are toward operationalizing SBOMs. Gartner predicted that, by 2025, a full 60% of organizations will be employing SBOMs. In theory, those organizations should be able to prevent software with unverified components from being deployed in production environments and identify which applications currently running have significant flaws.
On way or another, application providers will find themselves disclosing more about how their software is constructed. The issue now is finding a way to accomplish that goal in a way that respects intellectual property rights. As such, application providers need to find a secure way to share SBOMs with customers that will commit to making sure the contents of those SBOMs stay private. After all, a little cooperation from the coalition of the willing is likely to have a more positive impact than a law that is likely to be challenged.
