Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Explained

A comprehensive guide to Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) covering what they contain, why they matter for supply chain security, and how to integrate them into container workflows. SBOMs are machine-readable inventories of every component in a software artifact, including transitive dependencies, licenses, and checksums. The guide explains the two dominant formats (SPDX and CycloneDX), how to generate SBOMs at build time using Docker BuildKit, how to pair them with provenance attestations and cryptographic signatures, and how to use them for continuous vulnerability monitoring and policy enforcement. It also addresses regulatory requirements (EO 14028, CISA, EU CRA), common misconceptions, and an SBOM maturity model to help teams assess their current posture.

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