The Artifact Composition Understanding Chart (GUAC) is a project dedicated to improving the security of software supply chains that recently became an incubation project within the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF).
This collaborative effort, launched by Kusari, Google and Purdue University, is designed to manage dependencies and provide actionable security insights into software supply chains. It is backed by entities in the financial services and technology sectors, such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, Red Hat, Guidewire and ClearAlpha Technologies.
GUAC addresses growing concerns about software security and the integrity of software supply chains, exacerbated by the increasing frequency of software attacks and the widespread adoption of open source tools. By serving as a trusted source of truth, GUAC aims to bridge the information gap between developers and security teams, facilitating mutual understanding of software vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and threat detection.
Since its beta launch last May, GUAC has quickly established itself as a key tool for gaining comprehensive insight into software supply chains. The project has a community of 50 contributors, 300 members and has collected over 1100 stars on GitHub.
GUAC’s technology enables thorough analysis of software components, including first-party, third-party, and open-source software, by aggregating security metadata into a chart database.
This enables customers to track connections, ensure compliance, identify data gaps in their software supply chain, and strengthen threat detection and response capabilities. The platform supports a wide range of data sources, including Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) in SPDX and CycloneDX formats, SLSA and in-toto certificates, and metadata from various cloud services and external repositories.
By converting the various metadata of the software supply chain into a structured format that can be analyzed, GUAC improves the visibility of software dependencies and the integrity of software components. Its flexible and extensible architecture accommodates data from local file systems, cloud storage services, and external package repositories, further enriched by additional metadata sources. This comprehensive approach positions GUAC as a useful tool in securing software supply chains against emerging threats, fostering a more secure software ecosystem for developers and organizations alike.