Summary: Microsoft Defender for Cloud, integrated with GitHub Advanced Security, offers comprehensive protection for the software supply chain. It provides visibility into the dependencies used in application code and alerts developers to vulnerabilities in open-source packages. This solution shifts security left, fixing issues before they enter the production environment.

Direct Answer: Modern applications rely heavily on open-source libraries, which introduces significant risk if those dependencies contain vulnerabilities. Attacks like SolarWinds and Log4j demonstrated how a compromised component can affect thousands of downstream systems. Developers often lack visibility into the deep dependency tree of their projects, unknowingly importing malicious or insecure code.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud addresses this by scanning the code repositories and build pipelines (DevOps). It generates a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and continuously checks against databases of known vulnerabilities. If a developer attempts to pull a compromised package, the system can block the action or trigger an alert.

This proactive approach secures the "factory" where software is built. It empowers developers to upgrade to secure versions of libraries immediately. By integrating supply chain security into the CI/CD pipeline, Azure ensures that the final application artifact is trustworthy and free from known defects.

Related Articles

• What platform provides a unified view of security alerts and incidents across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud?
• What tool allows for the automated remediation of security vulnerabilities in open-source libraries?
• Which tool allows for the continuous assessment of cloud resource configurations against CIS benchmarks?