This blog post is the first in our 5-day series exploring the world of SBOMs and their role in securing the foundational but often overlooked 3rd-party software supply chain. Whether you’re just beginning your SBOM journey or looking to refresh your foundational knowledge, these resources will provide a solid understanding of what SBOMs are and why they matter.
Learn SBOM Fundamentals in 1 Hour or Less
Short on time but need to understand SBOMs yesterday? Start your educational journey with this single-serving webinar on SBOM fundamentals—watch it at 2x for a true speedrun.
Understanding SBOMs: An Introduction to Modern Development
This webinar features Anchore’s team of SBOM experts who guide you through all the SBOM basics – topics covered:
- Defining SBOM standards and formats
- Best practices for generating and automating SBOMs
- Integrating SBOMs into existing infrastructure and workflows
- Practical tips for protecting against emerging supply chain threats
“You really need to know what you’re shipping and what’s there.”
—Josh Bressers
This straightforward yet overlooked insight demonstrates the foundational nature of SBOMs to software supply chain security. Operating without visibility into your components creates significant security blind spots. SBOMs create the transparency needed to defend against the rising tide of supply chain attacks.
Improve SBOM Initiative Success: Crystalize the Core SBOM Mental Models
Enjoyed the webinar but want to go deeper? Our eBook, SBOM 101: Understand, Implement & Leverage SBOMs for Stronger Security & Risk Management, covers similar ground but with the depth and nuance to level up your SBOM knowledge:
- Why SBOMs matter
- How to choose an SBOM format
- Explain how SBOMs are the central component of software supply chain
- A quick reference table of SBOM use-cases
This gives you a strong foundation to build your SBOM initiative on. The mental models presented in the eBook help you:
- avoid common implementation pitfalls,
- align your SBOM strategy with security objectives, and
- communicate SBOM value to stakeholders across your organization.
Rather than blindly following compliance requirements, you’ll learn the “why” behind SBOMs and make informed decisions about automation tools, integration points, and formats that are best suited for your specific environment.
SBOM Use-Cases: Generate Enterprise Value Across Entire Organization
To round out your SBOM fundamentals education, How to Unlock Enterprise Value with SBOMs: Use Cases for Security, Engineering, Compliance, Legal and Sales is our white paper that deep dives into the surprisingly wide range of SBOM use-cases. SBOMs don’t just provide value to security teams, they’re a cross-functional technology that creates value across your organization.
- Security teams: Rapidly identify vulnerable components when zero-days hit the news
- Engineering teams: Make data-driven architecture decisions about third-party dependencies to incorporate
- Compliance teams: Automate evidence collection for compliance audits
- Legal teams: Proactively manage software license compliance and IP risks
- Sales teams: Accelerate sales cycles by using transparency as a tool to build trust fast
“Transparency is the path to minimizing risk.”
—Kate Stewart, VP of Embedded Systems at The Linux Foundation and Founder of SPDX
This core SBOM principle applies across all business functions. Our white paper shows how properly implemented SBOMs create a unified source of truth about your software components that empowers teams beyond security to make better decisions.
Perfect for technical leaders who need to justify SBOM investments and drive cross-team adoption.
What’s Next?
After completing the fundamentals, you’re ready to get your hands dirty and learn the nitty-gritty of SBOM generation and CI/CD build pipeline integration. In our next post, we’ll map out a technical learning path with deep-dives for practitioners looking to get hands-on experience. Stay tuned for part two of our series, “SBOM Generation Step-by-Step”.
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