Provenance and Attestation
An SBOM tells you what's in an artifact. Provenance tells you where it came from and how it was built — a tamper-evident record of the source, the builder, and the steps that produced it. It's the direct answer to the SolarWinds problem: a signed release means nothing if the build itself was compromised, so you need verifiable evidence of the build process, not just the output.
An SBOM tells you what's in an artifact; provenance tells you where it came from and how it was built — a tamper-evident record of the source, builder, and steps. It's the direct answer to the SolarWinds problem: a signed release means nothing if the build itself was compromised. This post covers provenance, attestation, in-toto, and the SLSA framework.