Where does your software (really) come from?

Software artifacts, the final product of source code transformations, often face security challenges due to a lack of visibility into their lifecycle from creation to deployment. This gap in traceability can lead to vulnerabilities, as it's challenging to verify whether the artifact corresponds accurately to its source code and build instructions. Utilizing digests and signatures can help verify the integrity of these artifacts, while attestations, particularly provenance attestations, provide authenticated assertions about their origins and build processes. The SLSA project offers a framework for software supply chain security, supporting the creation of standardized provenance attestations. Sigstore, an open-source project, enhances this process by providing a Certificate Authority and timestamp authority to ensure secure, transparent software signature management. GitHub, along with partners like Google and RedHat, plays a significant role in the Sigstore project, aiming to establish a tamper-proof connection between software artifacts and their source, thereby empowering software consumers to enforce security measures based on trusted origins.