S3C2 Summit 2025-09: Industry Secure Supply Chain Summit

2026-05-27

AI Summary

This study addresses the escalating threat of cyberattacks on software supply chains, where a single vulnerable component can precipitate systemic risk. To confront this challenge, the project convened a joint academic–industry summit that, for the first time, systematically integrated cross-domain practical insights. The work focuses on critical technical dimensions—including dependency management, container selection, detection of malicious commits, and build infrastructure security—while also incorporating cultural and procedural factors into a holistic analysis. It identifies emerging challenges such as novel risks introduced by large language models, distills key pain points and consensus across six core themes, and advances a collaborative, cross-institutional research agenda. This effort provides an empirical foundation and clear direction for developing standards and best practices in software supply chain security.

Abstract

Today's digital ecosystem relies heavily on software supply chains, which enable developers to reuse code and ship software at scale. However, a single vulnerable component can jeopardize the entire supply chain. In recent years, cyberattacks in software supply chains have become increasingly common. These attacks can disrupt critical systems and put organizations, including major software companies, government agencies, and open-source contributors, at risk. This growing threat has led to increased attention from both the software industry and the U.S. government toward strengthening software supply chain security. On September 15, 2025, three researchers from the NSF-backed Secure Software Supply Chain Center (S3C2) convened a Secure Software Supply Chain Summit, bringing together 10 practitioners from 8 organizations across diverse domains. The goals of the Summit were threefold: (1) to facilitate cross-industry sharing of practical experiences and challenges in securing software supply chains; (2) to foster new collaborations among participants; and (3) to identify pressing challenges to guide future research directions. The Summit featured discussions on six central topics: vulnerable dependencies, component and container choice, malicious commits, build infrastructure, culture, and the role of LLMs in the supply chain. For each topic, participants engaged with a curated set of discussion questions designed to gather insights and pain points. This report summarizes the key takeaways from these discussions. Each section highlights which topics continued from previous summits and which ideas emerged for the first time in this summit; the full list of initial discussion prompts is provided in the appendix.

Problem

• software supply chain security
• vulnerable dependencies
• malicious commits
• build infrastructure
• LLMs in supply chain

Innovation

• software supply chain security
• cross-industry collaboration
• LLM in supply chain
• vulnerable dependencies
• secure build infrastructure