In the current landscape of software development, the primary threat to the supply chain isn’t necessarily a lack of information – it’s a lack of action. Our 2026 Artifact Management Report reveals a growing "enforcement gap": the dangerous interval between identifying a vulnerability and successfully applying a security policy.
While organizations are getting better at generating security data, they are struggling to operationalize it. Visibility without automated enforcement is a front-row seat to disaster.
Most engineering teams can now tell you if they are vulnerable, but they struggle to tell you where and who is affected. While our report shows that identification speeds are improving, legacy infrastructure and manual processes hamper teams’ ability to act on that information.
The cost of manual effort
One of the first questions after discovering a malicious artifact may be: “Who downloaded this and where did it go?”
The answer for many teams is far from instantaneous. Our survey found that over 40% of organizations find it difficult to identify exactly which users or systems have accessed a specific compromised artifact, often requiring manual deep-dives into logs and system data for answers.
This manual toil is more than an inconvenience; it is a security risk. In a world of automated, AI-driven attacks, relying on human-speed investigations is a losing strategy.
Another major challenge contributing to the enforcement gap is toolchain fragmentation. Many organizations treat different types of threats as separate problems, using separate tools that don't talk to each other.
The provenance problem
Our data indicates that while CVE scanning is becoming standard, many organizations are still missing logic-based threats and malicious package injections. In fact, less than half of the teams surveyed have a fully automated process for verifying the chain of custody or cryptographic origin of their artifacts.
When your security stack is a patchwork of third-party scanners and manual spreadsheets, deny-by-default governance is impossible to maintain.
The enforcement gap is no longer just a security concern, it’s becoming a legal liability. The EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) introduces strict reporting mandates for any company selling digital products in the EU. Reporting requirements for the CRA begin in September 2026.
The notification windows for CRA compliance are narrow, requiring an “early warning” within just 24 hours of discovering an active vulnerability. If your team relies on manual effort to quarantine and remediate threats, meeting these legal timelines becomes a statistical improbability. To remain compliant, organizations must move away from static, compliance-only SBOMs and toward real-time, automated gatekeeping.
Cloudsmith was built to eliminate the friction between identifying a threat and stopping it. By providing a unified, cloud-native control plane for all your artifacts, we help you transition from reactive remediation to proactive governance.
Future-proof your development
The velocity of modern software development demands infrastructure that can scale security as fast as it scales code. By automating the enforcement of your security policies, you don't just close the gap; you build a more resilient foundation for everything your team creates.
Get all the data on software supply chain security.
This post highlights a few of the challenges facing modern DevOps and Security teams. Download the full report, which contains data and analysis on the state of software supply chain security.
