What’s actually slowing this PC down?

Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

OpenSSF adopted Microsoft’s Secure Supply Chain Consumption Framework (S2C2F) in November 2022, placing it under the Supply Chain Integrity Working Group and forming a dedicated Special Interest Group (SIG). S2C2F helps development organizations manage the risks of consuming open-source software: selecting dependencies, bringing them into development, governing them, keeping them updated, and monitoring them.

What is Microsoft’s S2C2F framework?

S2C2F is a threat-based framework for reducing risks that arise when organizations use open-source software (OSS). Microsoft describes it as a combination of processes, requirements, and tools for building a secure OSS ingestion pipeline and governance program. It focuses on the organization consuming dependencies—not primarily on how a software producer builds and publishes its own artifacts.

The framework was previously called the Open Source Software-Supply Chain (OSS-SSC) Framework. Microsoft contributed it to OpenSSF, the Open Source Security Foundation, and OpenSSF adopted it on November 16, 2022. OpenSSF assigned it to the Supply Chain Integrity Working Group and formed a dedicated SIG around it.

How is S2C2F organized?

The 2022 descriptions give two useful scope figures: Microsoft Security Engineering describes eight practices, while OpenSSF describes four maturity levels. The maturity approach is intended to let organizations prioritize and adopt requirements over time, rather than treating every control as an all-at-once prerequisite.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

Those figures do not, by themselves, identify the names or detailed requirements of each practice or maturity level. Organizations should consult the framework’s current materials for the actual checklist and level criteria rather than infer them from the counts.

How does S2C2F differ from SLSA?

S2C2F and SLSA address different parts of the software supply chain. S2C2F is consumer-focused; SLSA (Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts) is producer-focused. OpenSSF presents them as complementary: one helps govern what an organization consumes, while the other addresses how software artifacts are built and delivered.

Comparison S2C2F SLSA
Primary audience Organizations consuming open-source dependencies Software producers and teams responsible for artifact production
Lifecycle focus Dependency selection, ingestion, governance, updates, and monitoring Build integrity, artifact provenance, and resistance to tampering
Security evidence or controls Processes and controls for governing dependency use and ingestion Provenance and build-related evidence, including attestations
Adoption structure Eight practices and four maturity levels in the 2022 descriptions Tracks and levels; SLSA 1.0, released April 19, 2023, reorganized requirements into tracks, beginning with the Build Track

Using both can address more of the chain than either alone: S2C2F guides the consumer’s dependency controls, while SLSA helps a producer demonstrate properties of the build and resulting artifacts.

What can S2C2F look like in a build pipeline?

Microsoft says it has implemented S2C2F-related controls since 2019. In a 2022 engineering account, it described threat modeling its CI/CD environment and using controls that protect build infrastructure, track its components, and check release evidence. Microsoft also reported using more than 65,000 open-source packages; that figure describes Microsoft’s reported use in 2022, not a universal scale or current package count.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

Protect and isolate build infrastructure

  • Use secure boot for build agents and security monitoring.
  • Isolate build networks and use ephemeral build agents, reducing the exposure and persistence of individual build environments.

Track build tools and dependencies

  • Maintain an inventory of build tools and update them.
  • Establish governance for the open-source dependencies entering development, including how they are selected, ingested, and monitored.

Validate release evidence

  • Validate SBOM integrity at release. An SBOM, or software bill of materials, records software components; integrity validation helps ensure the released inventory has not been altered.
  • Pair consumer-side dependency governance with producer-side build and provenance controls where both perspectives are in scope.

These are examples from Microsoft’s implementation account, not a substitute for the framework’s complete requirements. The practical takeaway is to treat dependency governance and build-environment security as connected but distinct work: controlling what enters a pipeline does not, by itself, establish how a resulting artifact was built.

Are Microsoft security products required for S2C2F?

No. Microsoft presents S2C2F as solution-agnostic. It identifies GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) and GHAS on Azure DevOps as tools that can help organizations achieve Level 2 compliance, but they are examples, not mandatory components of the framework. Organizations should select tools based on their environment and verify how the tools map to the applicable S2C2F criteria.

Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Support on Ko-Fi

What has happened since OpenSSF adopted it?

OpenSSF’s 2024 annual report says S2C2F continued to be refined and that work on a SLSA Dependencies Track was being bootstrapped from S2C2F. The report also said SLSA 1.1 was nearing final draft at that time. These are status statements from the 2024 report; they do not establish the present publication or completion status of either effort.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.