Cyber threats in the supply chain rarely come out of nowhere. Often, there are weeks or even months of warning signs, vulnerabilities, suspicious domain registrations, or leaked accounts, before an actual incident takes place.
In the OWASP Top 10:2025 (Release Candidate), these risks have now been given a prominent spot. The new category A03: Software Supply Chain Failures enters directly at number three, and has the highest average incidence rate of all categories: 5.19%.
As Tweakers put it: “Vulnerabilities in software supply chains appear as a category for the first time in the updated OWASP list, debuting straight at number three.”
The message for security teams is clear: your software supply chain is no longer a side concern, it’s a core risk.
RiskStudio helps you detect early signals within your supply chain and turn them into concrete actions, especially in the external, dependency-driven layer that OWASP is now highlighting.
What Does OWASP Mean by “Software Supply Chain Failures”?
OWASP defines software supply chain failures as disruptions or compromises in the process of building, distributing, or updating software. These often arise from vulnerabilities or malicious changes in third-party code, tools, or other dependencies your systems rely on.
According to OWASP, you’re likely vulnerable if you:
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Lack visibility into all component versions (including transitive dependencies);
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Use outdated or unmaintained third-party components;
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Don’t regularly scan your stack for vulnerabilities;
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Don’t apply change management or tracking to your supply chain (CI/CD, IDE extensions, repositories, image and library repos, etc.).
Tweakers also emphasizes that modern software ecosystems have become far more complex—and vulnerable—due to the rise of dependencies, build systems, and distribution infrastructures, compared to the old “vulnerable and outdated components” category.
Read the official OWASP description here:
👉 OWASP Top 10:2025 A03 – Software Supply Chain Failures
Read the Tweakers article here:
👉 Tweakers: “OWASP Foundation puts software supply chain gaps in top three for the first time”
Bybit and GlassWorm: Real-World A03 Scenarios
A03 is not just a theoretical category. Both OWASP documentation and industry news are now full of real-world examples of supply chain attacks, including:
Bybit (2025)
A supply chain attack embedded in wallet software that only activated under specific conditions. The malware didn’t execute immediately, but only when the target wallet was actively used—resulting in the theft of roughly $1.5 billion.
GlassWorm (2025)
A sophisticated attack via the VS Code and OpenVSX marketplaces:
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Legitimate extensions were infected;
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Updates rolled out automatically to developers;
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The worm stole local secrets, set up command & control infrastructure, and drained developers’ crypto wallets where possible.
These are classic software supply chain failures: it’s not your own codebase being directly attacked, but rather the tools, extensions, and components you blindly trust.
And this is exactly the layer—external dependencies, third/fourth parties, tooling, and transitive dependencies—that RiskStudio focuses on.
How RiskStudio Aligns with OWASP A03
The OWASP page for A03: Software Supply Chain Failures includes several clear recommendations, such as:
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Maintaining an up-to-date Software Bill of Materials (SBOM);
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Tracking both dependencies and transitive dependencies;
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Continuously monitoring CVE/NVD databases and security bulletins;
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Hardening and monitoring your CI/CD pipeline and third-party integrations.
RiskStudio directly supports these best practices by enabling external, dependency-focused monitoring and tracking of your (transitive) dependencies. Where OWASP provides the guidelines, RiskStudio gives you the tools to actually put them into action.
1. Dynamic Vendor Mapping of Your Digital Supply Chain with RiskStudio
The foundation of A03 is knowing exactly who and what is in your supply chain.
RiskStudio helps you map out your digital supply chain:
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Link internal data (procurement, IT, vendor lists), easily uploaded, with external sources;
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Gain visibility not just into direct suppliers, but also third- and fourth-party entities that affect you indirectly;
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Get a real-time overview of every entity that has, at any point, access to your systems, data, or development pipeline.
This directly supports OWASP’s recommendation to document and manage your entire supply chain—including tooling, libraries, image repositories, and third-party SaaS integrations.
In short: RiskStudio makes your supplier and dependency landscape visible, so A03 doesn’t remain a blind spot.
2. Continuous Threat Monitoring for External Supply Chain Risks
Where OWASP advises continuous scanning for vulnerabilities and updates in your components, RiskStudio automates that process.
The platform continuously monitors thousands of sources, including:
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CVE and NVD data, to detect exploitable components or vulnerabilities at suppliers early on;
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Domain hygiene checks, surfacing misconfigurations, expired domains, or suspicious registrations;
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SSL exposure scans, to see whether internal or supplier domains are unintentionally public;
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News feeds, dark web forums, and social media, where signs of leaks or compromises often surface first;
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Indicators of active threat campaigns, like infrastructure patterns or IOCs seen in GlassWorm-like malware campaigns.
RiskStudio links all this data to your supplier map, instantly alerting you if any external party is associated with a breach, vulnerability, or malicious activity.
3. From Raw Signals to A03-Relevant Risk Prioritization
A single CVE in a dependency isn’t necessarily a crisis. But a critical vulnerability in a supplier deep within your production chain is.
RiskStudio helps assess the true severity of a threat based on:
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The data access level of the component or vendor;
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Your business or application’s dependency on it;
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Risk scores and exploitability assessments;
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How closely the threat aligns with known categories like the OWASP Top 10 (incl. A03).
At a glance, you can see:
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Which suppliers are critical and could lead to a Bybit-level impact;
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Which warnings are informational and can be scheduled for later.
Instead of a generic checklist, RiskStudio provides contextual prioritization: which external software supply chain failures actually pose a real threat to your organization right now?
4. Actionable Insights: RiskStudio Turns OWASP Theory into Practical Steps
OWASP stresses that every part of your supply chain needs its own hardening and update plan—code repositories, build servers, CI/CD, artifact repositories, third-party SaaS, container registries, and more.
When RiskStudio detects a potential risk, it immediately tells you:
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Which supplier or component is involved;
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The nature of the vulnerability or attack vector (e.g., a CVE, phishing domain, or leaked data);
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The business impact, including where the dependency sits and whether the risk could propagate;
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Clear next steps, such as:
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Patching or upgrading a component;
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Temporarily isolating a vendor;
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Escalating to the supplier’s security team;
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Adding monitoring or compensating controls in your CI/CD pipeline;
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Trend data, so you can see whether the risk is growing or being mitigated.
This way, RiskStudio translates OWASP’s approach—SBOM, dependency tracking, continuous monitoring, and change management—into a practical, action-oriented workflow.
Conclusion: OWASP A03 Calls for Predictive Supply Chain Security — with RiskStudio
With the introduction of A03: Software Supply Chain Failures in the OWASP Top 10:2025, supply chain security is no longer optional—it’s mission-critical. Not only has it entered the top three, it also has the highest average incident rate across all risks.
RiskStudio is built to meet this challenge by:
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Mapping your digital supply chain;
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Continuously monitoring external and transitive dependencies;
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Prioritizing risks based on real business impact;
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Providing concrete next steps for every signal or incident.
This turns supply chain security from a reactive checklist on the sidelines into a predictive process—one that helps you prevent incidents instead of simply cleaning up after them.
Want to find out where a Bybit- or GlassWorm-style scenario could emerge in your own chain—and stop it before it starts?
Then now is the time to take your software supply chain seriously—and pair it with tooling that moves in step with OWASP A03: RiskStudio.
