Building a secure software supply chain is often depicted as a monumental transformation of the existing practices. You need to redesign your CI/CD pipeline according to an established security framework such as SLSA, introduce provenance, implement zero trust principles, integrate security scanning tools, build a vulnerability management system, and do many more things. No wonder many teams postpone this task to better days with more time, larger security team, and a permission to rebuild the whole pipeline from scratch.

Indeed, a mature supply chain security program may take months to build, but the first meaningful improvements can be made much sooner and without tearing everything down. So where should a team start?

For Java teams, our answer is SIP: a Security Immediate Plan made of five controls that a technical leader can start implementing in hours rather than months.…