What is a software supply chain security tool?

A tool that protects what goes into your software from outside: open-source dependencies, container images, CI/CD pipelines and build artifacts. The main kinds are dependency scanners, malicious-package checks, SBOM tools, signing and provenance, CI hardening and incident alerting.

Is SCA the same as supply chain security?

No. Software composition analysis finds known vulnerabilities in your dependencies, which is one part. Supply chain security also covers malicious packages, tampered builds, compromised CI and the response when a vendor or package you use is breached.

What are free software supply chain security tools?

OSV-Scanner, Trivy, Syft, Dependency-Track, Sigstore cosign and OpenSSF Scorecard are open source (Apache-2.0), and zizmor is MIT. Dependabot is free on GitHub, and Socket, Snyk and Aikido have free plans with limits.

How do I detect a malicious npm package?

Use a check built for it: Socket, or Dependabot's malware alerts, which cover npm since March 2026. Delay brand-new versions with Dependabot's cooldown or Renovate's minimumReleaseAge, and get alerted when a package you already run is reported compromised.

What should I do after a supply chain attack?

Find every repo and machine that installed the affected version, pin a safe version, rotate the secrets that were reachable from those environments, and review CI logs from the exposure window. Pharon's notices list the affected versions, and its check command does the machine part read-only.

Software supply chain security tools, by the job they do

Updated November 14, 2026

Software supply chain security isn't one tool. Most teams combine a dependency scanner (Snyk, Aikido, OSV-Scanner or Trivy), a malicious-package check (Socket or Dependabot's malware alerts), an SBOM (Syft with Dependency-Track), signed provenance (Sigstore cosign or GitHub artifact attestations) and CI hardening (zizmor, Harden-Runner, OpenSSF Scorecard). What most stacks miss is the response: knowing within minutes which repos and machines a new compromise touched, and what to rotate. That's the job Pharon does.

Supply chain security tools at a glance

Job	Tools	What it catches
Dependency scanning (SCA)	Snyk (opens in a new tab), Aikido (opens in a new tab), OSV-Scanner (opens in a new tab), Trivy (opens in a new tab), Dependabot	Known vulnerabilities in the packages you declare
Malicious packages	Socket (opens in a new tab), Dependabot malware alerts, OpenSSF reports	Packages published to attack you, often with no CVE
SBOMs	Syft (opens in a new tab), Dependency-Track (opens in a new tab)	A record of every component that went into a build
Signing and provenance	Sigstore cosign (opens in a new tab), GitHub artifact attestations (opens in a new tab)	Tampered artifacts, and builds you can't trace back to source
CI/CD hardening	zizmor (opens in a new tab), Harden-Runner (opens in a new tab), OpenSSF Scorecard (opens in a new tab)	Risky workflows, unexpected activity on runners, weak repository practices
Incident response	Pharon	Which repos and machines a compromise touched, who owns them, what to rotate

Facts come from each vendor's own pricing page, docs or repository, checked on November 14, 2026; tool names link to the page we read.

Dependency scanning (SCA)

A software composition analysis tool reads your manifests and lockfiles and flags dependencies with a known vulnerability. It's the base layer, and most teams already have one.

Snyk scans dependencies through source-control integrations, the CLI, CI and IDE plugins, and opens fix pull requests. The Free plan covers 200 Open Source tests and 5 projects; Team starts at $25 a month.
Aikido puts dependency scanning next to code, container, IaC and secrets scanning. Its free Developer plan covers 2 users and 10 repositories; malware detection is a paid add-on.
OSV-Scanner (Apache-2.0) is Google's CLI for checking lockfiles and container images against OSV.dev.
Trivy (Apache-2.0) finds vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and secrets in containers, Kubernetes, code repositories and clouds, and generates SBOMs.
Dependabot is built into GitHub and free; Renovate vs Dependabot compares it with the other update bot.

How Pharon compares with Snyk, Aikido and OSV-Scanner.

Malicious packages

A malicious release often has no CVE: it was published to steal credentials or run code, not shipped with a bug. Tools that only read vulnerability databases can miss it, so this job needs its own check.

Socket looks for malicious and risky packages, often before an advisory exists, and can block them. Free for 1 developer and 1,000 scans a month; Team is $25 per developer a month. How Pharon compares with Socket.
Dependabot malware alerts are a setting you turn on in GitHub: npm since March 2026, PyPI and more ecosystems since July 2026. They alert; they don't open pull requests.
OpenSSF malicious-packages (on GitHub (opens in a new tab), Apache-2.0) collects reports of malicious packages in the OSV format; GitHub's malware advisories draw on it.
Renovate can refuse to open a pull request to a version OSV.dev marks malicious, with its experimental osvVulnerabilityAlerts.

CI/CD hardening

CI runners hold deploy keys and registry tokens, which makes them a favorite target.

zizmor (MIT) is a static analyzer for GitHub Actions workflows.
Harden-Runner (Apache-2.0, by StepSecurity) monitors network and process activity on GitHub Actions runners. The Community tier is free for public repositories on GitHub-hosted runners; private repositories and self-hosted runners need Enterprise.
OpenSSF Scorecard (Apache-2.0) scores a repository's security practices, such as pinned dependencies and branch protection.

Pin third-party actions to a commit SHA, not a tag: in 2025 the tags of tj-actions/changed-files were moved to a malicious commit.

When an incident lands

Every tool above works before or during a build. When a package, a GitHub Action or a vendor is compromised, the questions change: which of our repos use it, did a laptop or CI runner already install it, who owns those repos, and which secrets were in reach?

That's the job Pharon does. A local scan keeps an inventory of each repo's packages, container images, GitHub Actions and runtimes (names, versions and file paths only). New incidents from OSV.dev, CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list, endoflife.date and security news are matched against it, and the team that owns the repo hears by email, Slack or webhook. /pharon:check-incident checks a machine read-only and names the secrets to rotate, and a GitHub Action fails pull requests that bring an affected version back. Checking a machine against any public notice is free with no account; alerts start at $12 a month, with a 7-day trial and no card.

A starter stack for a small team

Updates and known vulnerabilities: Dependabot or Renovate, plus OSV-Scanner or Trivy in CI.
Malicious packages: Socket, or Dependabot's malware alerts turned on.
CI: zizmor on your workflows, and third-party actions pinned to a commit SHA.
Response: an inventory of what each repo runs and an alert path to its owners, so the next incident takes minutes to scope, not days.

New to the topic? Start with what software supply chain security is, with real attacks and the frameworks that matter.

Questions

What is a software supply chain security tool?: A tool that protects what goes into your software from outside: open-source dependencies, container images, CI/CD pipelines and build artifacts. The main kinds are dependency scanners, malicious-package checks, SBOM tools, signing and provenance, CI hardening and incident alerting.
Is SCA the same as supply chain security?: No. Software composition analysis finds known vulnerabilities in your dependencies, which is one part. Supply chain security also covers malicious packages, tampered builds, compromised CI and the response when a vendor or package you use is breached.
What are free software supply chain security tools?: OSV-Scanner, Trivy, Syft, Dependency-Track, Sigstore cosign and OpenSSF Scorecard are open source (Apache-2.0), and zizmor is MIT. Dependabot is free on GitHub, and Socket, Snyk and Aikido have free plans with limits.
How do I detect a malicious npm package?: Use a check built for it: Socket, or Dependabot's malware alerts, which cover npm since March 2026. Delay brand-new versions with Dependabot's cooldown or Renovate's minimumReleaseAge, and get alerted when a package you already run is reported compromised.
What should I do after a supply chain attack?: Find every repo and machine that installed the affected version, pin a safe version, rotate the secrets that were reachable from those environments, and review CI logs from the exposure window. Pharon's notices list the affected versions, and its check command does the machine part read-only.

See the latest supply chain incidents, or start a free trial.