SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)
A complete inventory of software components, libraries, and dependencies in a device or application. Critical for vulnerability response, regulatory compliance, and supply chain risk management.
What is SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)?
A complete inventory of software components, libraries, and dependencies in a device or application. Critical for vulnerability response, regulatory compliance, and supply chain risk management.
A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is a machine-readable inventory of all software components, libraries, and dependencies contained within a product or system — essentially the ingredient list for a software package. SBOMs have become a critical tool for vulnerability management because they allow organizations to rapidly identify which of their assets contain a specific vulnerable component when new CVEs are disclosed.
The importance of SBOMs became dramatically clear with the Log4Shell vulnerability in 2021. Organizations that had SBOMs for their applications could identify affected systems in hours; those without SBOMs spent weeks manually surveying their environment, often finding exposures long after attackers had already exploited them.
In the IoT and medical device space, SBOMs are increasingly mandated. The FDA's 2023 medical device cybersecurity guidance requires manufacturers to provide SBOMs for new device submissions. CISA has published guidelines for SBOM adoption in critical infrastructure. The value proposition is straightforward: without an SBOM, identifying all assets that contain a given vulnerable library requires manual analysis of each device. With an SBOM, the search is immediate.
Key Facts
- EO 14028 requires SBOMs for all software sold to the US federal government
- FDA guidance requires SBOMs for new medical device submissions as of October 2023
- Organizations with SBOMs identified Log4Shell exposure in hours; those without took 2–6 weeks
- Over 80% of modern applications contain open-source components with at least one known vulnerability
How ORDR Addresses SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)
ORDR's Software Inventory Collector (ORDR Code) performs agentless SBOM-equivalent discovery on connected devices — identifying installed software, libraries, and components without requiring agent installation. When a new CVE is published, ORDR immediately correlates it against the software inventory to identify all affected assets, enabling rapid response regardless of whether the device manufacturer has published a formal SBOM.
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See SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) in practice.
ORDR gives security teams complete visibility into every connected asset—and the intelligence to act on what matters most.