With supply chain attacks accelerating at an unprecedented pace, organizations are increasingly turning to software supply chain security and third-party risk management (TPRM) tools. The landscape is crowded and confusing, but security and compliance teams all seek the same core outcomes: a clear risk profile for every vendor, visibility into risk changes, vendor configuration security, rapid notification of any impact and proof they remain compliant.
This guide cuts through all the noise to break down the major types of supply chain security solutions and explains how each one protects your organization.
What is a supply chain attack
A SaaS supply chain attack happens when an attacker exploits the hidden connections between SaaS apps such as OAuth tokens and API integrations to compromise one application and use it to access others.
Because data flows freely between SaaS tools and users can create integrations with a single click, organizations often accumulate integrations with over-privileged access, shadow OAuth tokens, and unmonitored automations that traditional security tools aren’t designed to detect.
Attackers increasingly take advantage of these blind spots. A notable example is the Salesloft–Drift incident, where more than 700 organizations were impacted. Attackers leveraged compromised OAuth tokens tied to the Salesloft-Drift integration which provided them with access to multiple customers’ Salesforce environments. From there, they systematically exported sensitive data from customer contacts to credentials like AWS keys and Snowflake tokens. The ripple effects continued with the Gainsight incident, where a compromised SaaS-to-SaaS integration again enabled unauthorized access to Salesforce data, prompting them to revoke all active access and refresh tokens.
This incident serves as a wake up call where SaaS-to-SaaS integrations have become one of the most overlooked entry points in modern environments. When these connections aren’t monitored or governed, a single compromised integration can give attackers broad, cascading access across multiple business critical systems. Strengthening visibility and control over these relationships is quickly becoming essential to protecting today’s cloud dependent organizations.
Types of Third Party Risk Management security
Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Security
Software Bills of Materials (SBOM) security tools create, manage, and update comprehensive inventories of everything in an application from open-source components to add-on packages, and versions. With this list, SBOM tools can quickly point out vulnerabilities such as tampered parts, outdated components and flag risks.
These tools are especially useful when attackers hide malicious code inside popular open-source software. A well known incident is the Log4Shell incident, where a code vulnerability was discovered in a widely used software package called Log4j and many organizations did not even realize their apps relied on it. Teams spent weeks trying to locate the affected software but with an SBOM, they could have identified impacted applications instantly, reducing both risk and response time.
By embedding policy checks into the development process and continuously updating SBOMs, these tools help teams quickly pinpoint exposure during incidents and significantly reduce the time spent triaging but would miss risks at the third party, SaaS and integration layer. Examples of platforms with SBOM capabilities include Synk, JFrog and Wiz.
CI/CD and build pipeline integrity
Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) and build pipeline integrity solutions secure the entire software development lifecycle by protecting the code, identities, workflows, and artifacts flowing through automated pipelines. These tools ensure pipelines are securely configured, developer and service accounts aren’t compromised, and no unauthorized changes can be introduced into the build process.
An example of where this matters is the SolarWinds attack, where hackers broke into the company’s build environment and inserted malicious code into a trusted software update. This was then delivered to thousands of customers, including major US government agencies and global companies. Strong pipeline integrity controls such as secure configurations, identity monitoring or tampering detections could have blocked this type of unauthorized changes before it reached customers.
Ultimately, they are focused mainly on the build of the software, ensuring it is authentic, tamper-proof, and delivered exactly as intended, free from hidden risks or malicious modifications. Examples of platforms focusing on CI/CD security include Cycode and Chainguard.
Vendor Risk Management
Vendor Risk Management (VRM) tools continuously scan a vendor’s public-facing assets such as domains, servers, cloud resources, and API to identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, exposed services, and other weaknesses an attacker could exploit.
Some platforms take this a step further to provide vendor risk scoring where they take this external security data, correlate it with threat intelligence, breach history, and remediation behavior, and convert it into a quantifiable score that reflects a vendor’s overall risk. This is commonly used when companies are assessing the risk levels of new vendors or want objective visibility into their posture but provide very little visibility into internal data. It’s also only able to capture static data at certain points in time and therefore completely misses critical detailed data on integrations, tokens and permissions. Examples of VRM platforms include Security Scorecard and Black Kite.
SaaS Supply Chain management
SaaS integration risk management solutions such as Obsidian Security secure the web of connections between SaaS apps such as OAuth permissions and API integrations. These tools map all SaaS to SaaS integrations, analyze what data each connection can access, monitor risky OAuth scopes and tokens, detect suspicious cross-app activity, and flag overprivileged or unsafe integrations.
In the case of the Salesloft-Drift, Obsidian Security was able to identify key indicators of compromise such as the Drift connection having too much access and acting in suspicious ways, therefore prompting security teams to shut it down or reduce permissions.
The goal is to control the hidden supply chain risks created when employees and applications connect SaaS tools to each other, ensuring only secure, necessary, and compliant integrations remain active.
Why tackling the hidden layer of SaaS supply chain risk is so critical
As SaaS ecosystems grow, it’s clear that traditional vendor assessments only cover part of the risk picture and only provide static data. Increasingly, real exposure is constantly changing and lies in the connections between SaaS apps: the API integrations, OAuth permissions, automations, and add-ons that quietly link tools together and often hold broad access to sensitive data.
These integrations can be created by any employee easily and quickly, leaving security teams with limited visibility into what’s connected and how data flows across their environment. Our research found that SaaS to SaaS data moves 10x faster than human to SaaS, making it even harder to monitor.
The risk is not theoretical. With the rise of AI, shadow SaaS increases exponentially and supply chains get increasingly complex, with attackers increasingly exploiting these blind spots to move laterally across environments. Today, 15% of all SaaS breaches originate from a third-party or supply chain compromise, with an average cost of $4.91 million per breach (IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2025), highlighting just how damaging a single compromised OAuth token or integration can become.
That’s why integration risk management is emerging as a crucial piece of modern SaaS security. By shifting the focus from surface level vendor posture to the operational reality of how apps interact, it provides the visibility and enforcement needed to control this growing sprawl of integrations.
How Obsidian secures your entire SaaS and AI supply chain
Obsidian protects your organization from supply chain attacks by giving full visibility and control over your SaaS and AI ecosystem. We inventory all your SaaS apps, including shadow SaaS and their integrations, the risks that they introduce, and provide the governance needed to reduce your attack surface. Unlike most vendors which capture static, point-of-time data, Obsidian is able to capture the changing relationships between SaaS applications. This is necessary for you to get the full picture of your risks since the very nature of SaaS includes constant changes between integrations.
With Obsidian:
- Get a view of applications in your environment, including shadow and federated apps
- Reduce integration risks with visibility and risk scoring
- Secure third party apps by enforcing least privilege, hardening configurations, applying consistent policies and streamline workflows with action policies
- Spot abnormal activities in your SaaS supply chain, catching suspicious access or lateral movement early through custom connectors with more than 60 new integrations added in November
