Read the paper on arXiv.
We’re excited to announce the publication of our research paper “Bomfather: An eBPF-based Kernel-level Monitoring Framework for Accurate Identification of Unknown, Unused, and Dynamically Loaded Dependencies in Modern Software Supply Chains” on arXiv.
The paper introduces our revolutionary approach to software supply chain security, which addresses critical gaps in conventional dependency-tracking methods.
Key Research Takeaways
Our research demonstrates how kernel-level monitoring can provide tamper evident build time dependencies by computing cryptographic hashes of files accessed during compilation and constructing Merkle trees based on observed file content.
Unlike traditional static analysis approaches, our methodology accounts for:
- Unused dependencies that don’t affect the final artifact
- Partial library dependencies and dynamic linking
- Libraries loaded at runtime and short-lived build files
This results in significantly more precise Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) and enhances trustworthiness in software artifacts through kernel-level evidence of build provenance.