Importance of Consistently Maintaining a Software Bill of Materials: Its Financial Benefits Explained
In the ever-evolving landscape of software development, one key element has emerged as a crucial part of infrastructure services: the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). According to a 2023 Sonatype survey, 92% of large enterprises have either planned or implemented an SBOM, yet nearly half of security professionals believe their organizations are lagging behind in adopting SBOMs as mandated by Executive Order 14028 and the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CRA).
An SBOM serves as a comprehensive inventory of the software components that make up modern technology stacks, as defined by CISA. By tracking the version number of components used, SBOMs help software teams keep track of licensing requirements, usage guidelines, and the risk of obsolescence. They are living operational documents that can help teams check for newly introduced vulnerabilities, enforce policies that prevent critical vulnerabilities from reaching production, and make updates more efficiently.
The importance of SBOMs extends beyond just compliance. They are valuable for faster vulnerability remediation, third-party risk management, and supporting the 'shift-left' secure development mentality. SBOMs provide answers to basic yet critical operational questions such as what software instances, applications, and packages a team is running, what components the current stack of applications and services rely on, and what has changed in the codebase and its connection points between versions.
The market for SBOM services is growing, with key players such as GitLab, GitHub, Snyk, Anchore, Sonatype, Aqua, Veracode, Chainguard, Synopsys, Sysdig, and Palo Alto Networks leading the charge. Beyond traditional ERP and supply chain software providers like Xentral, specialized cybersecurity and compliance service providers are focusing on SBOM generation and vulnerability management.
Despite the growing importance of SBOMs, challenges remain. Organizations must consider the challenges of retroactively applying SBOM standards to existing software assets and assess how effective an SBOM will be in a rapid, cloud-native environment. Simplicity is the best starting point for generating and using SBOMs, and any SBOM is better than no SBOM at all.
The new Component Hash field in SBOMs offers a unique identifier for each dependency across an SBOM, providing more informed decisions. Technology procurement buyers tend to buy SBOM solutions based on their ability to offer standards support, vulnerability-mapping, policy automation, governance services, and developer ergonomics.
SBOMs date back to around 2010 in their current formalized definition. Recently, CISA has released a draft of its updated SBOM "minimum elements" for public comment, which includes mandatory fields like Tool Name and License. SBOMs aren't just about meeting a compliance requirement; they are useful in understanding software composition, managing dependencies, and ultimately delivering software with greater confidence, speed, and control.
As businesses demand SBOMs as part of their software procurement processes, and both the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) publish SBOM recommendations that are mandatory for federal entities and their software suppliers, SBOMs are expected to become table stakes over the next few years. The co-founder and CTO at software supply chain security company Kusari, Mike Lieberman, aptly describes SBOMs as an ecosystem-agnostic way to describe the software that's inside applications. SBOMs are set to play a pivotal role in the future of software development, ensuring transparency, accountability, and security.
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