Supply Chain Cybersecurity
Software Supply Chain Attacks: How They Work & How to Defend
Software supply chain attacks inject malicious code into trusted components — open-source packages, build systems, update mechanisms, or developer tools. Common techniques include dependency confusion, typosquatting, compromised maintainer accounts, and build pipeline injection. Defenses include SBOMs, dependency pinning, build provenance, and continuous vulnerability scanning.
Andreas Johansson · Chief Executive Officer
Senior IT management leader with 25 years of experience in Cloud, Security, and Datacenter infrastructure.
How Software Supply Chain Attacks Work
Instead of attacking you directly, attackers compromise something you trust:
- A popular open-source library
- Your CI/CD build pipeline
- A software update mechanism
- A developer tool or IDE extension
Common Techniques
Dependency Confusion
Attackers publish malicious packages with the same name as internal packages on public registries; build systems pull the public (malicious) version.
Typosquatting
Publishing packages with names similar to popular ones (e.g., "requets" instead of "requests").
Compromised Maintainers
Attackers gain access to maintainer accounts and push malicious updates to legitimate packages.
Build Pipeline Injection
Compromising CI/CD systems to inject code during the build process — the source code looks clean, but the artifact is malicious.
Defenses
- SBOM — know every component in your software
- Dependency pinning — lock versions and verify checksums
- Build provenance — verify where artifacts came from
- Private registries — control package sources
- Continuous scanning — detect known vulnerabilities in dependencies
- Code signing — verify integrity of updates and releases
How SeqOps fits
SeqOps finds known vulnerabilities in the software installed on your servers, including third-party components, and shows which to patch first. It doesn't assess your vendors.