A software bill of materials is a list of all the parts and software dependencies that go into making and delivering an application (SBOM).
It has become more popular and important as a part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and the devsecops process.
Modern software applications and services are often made up of parts and dependencies that come from different places.
Open source software projects, proprietary code, apis, programming language frameworks, and software libraries are all examples of components and dependencies.
The software supply chain is made up of the many sources that make up modern software. These sources are where applications and services get the information they need to work.
An SBOM is like a bill of materials when it comes to supply chains and making things (BOM).
But it hasn’t always been a standard feature for IT companies to be able to point out exactly which parts of an application’s code are used to make it work.
An SBOM gives information about how software works, which helps users and businesses understand what is being used and where potential risks might be.
What does a bill of materials for software include?
The most basic level of an SBOM is an inventory of the sources and dependencies of a certain application or online service.
The source components list the shared resources, like dynamic link libraries (dlls), that are needed for a programme to run. SBOM also offers open source code for many applications and software libraries that can be used for different things.
The SBOM manifest must list all of the programming frameworks and middleware components that an application uses or depends on.
The main difference between an SBOM and a list of ingredients or items in stock is that an SBOM should also include information about where each component came from.
In modern software development, it is common for one piece of application code to depend on another piece. Because of this, a dependency tree is needed to show what the most important parts of an application are.
Why making a Bill of Materials for software is a good idea?
Due to the large number of unique software components, dependencies, and licensing, it may be hard to keep up with modern programmes.
Without a software bill of materials, tasks like risk assessment, OSS license compliance due diligence (like finding copyleft-licensed components), and vulnerability mitigation may take a very long time and be very unpleasant.
A software bill of materials may assist in managing risks in the software supply chain, which is the opposite side of the coin. Sboms are especially helpful with:
- Follow all federal laws and rules.
- Speed up how quickly possible dangers are found and dealt with.
- Give manufacturers the freedom to follow the requirements for attribution that come with using different open source libraries.
- Cut down on the work that development teams might have to do because of supply network confusion.
- It’s important to build trust and be honest with customers.
- Make it easy for manufacturers to find and fix broken parts after they have been sold.
- In case of an audit, make sure your business doesn’t have to stop for long periods of time.
Cases for Bills of Materials
Businesses should definitely think about making a software bill of materials for a number of good reasons.
So, companies should always make sboms for every good they sell (and update them for any new release).
Still, a software bill of materials might be useful in a few unusual situations.
Acquisitions, Initial Public Offerings (ipos), and raising money As part of the technical due diligence process for a possible merger or acquisition, initial public offering (IPO), or financing round, a software bill of materials needs to be made.
People who are interested could look for documentation to learn more about the software components in your products as well as any security, code quality, or licensing compliance problems.
- Compliance with regulations: As we’ve already said, the recent cybersecurity executive order on software supply chain security from the Biden Administration requires businesses that sell to the federal government to include an SBOM with every product or post it on a public website.
- Requests from Customers: We think that more and more businesses will include sboms in their buying and/or renewing processes as it becomes more important for companies around the world to avoid software supply chain attacks.
- Backward compatibility: Companies that keep a lot of old software are usually required to update and upgrade their OSS packages. Having a full list of all the OSS items in those old things makes this, of course, a lot easier.
Getting the Right Tools to Make a Software Bill of Materials
It seems likely that a software bill of materials will become more important to how a business works in the future.
But, given the amount of information needed to make an SBOM, it might be hard to put the parts together by hand.
With the help of sbom analysis and other tools for software composition analysis, organizations can make a software bill of materials. They:
- Give information that is complete and correct.
- Offer different ways to report.
Automate important SBOM generation processes to save time for teams.
