Software development has reached an inflexion point where security failures no longer begin at deployment or runtime. According to a year-end analysis, software supply chain security risks in 2026 are becoming structural as attackers increasingly compromise software at its point of creation.

The report indicates that software supply chain attacks more than doubled globally during 2025, with over 70% of organisations reporting at least one incident linked to third-party software or upstream components. The data suggests a sustained threat pattern rather than isolated spikes, with October 2025 marking the highest concentration of incidents.

Attacks move earlier in the lifecycle

The findings show a decisive shift in how and where attacks occur. Instead of breaching network perimeters or exploiting deployed applications, threat actors are targeting software during assembly. This change moves risk earlier in the development lifecycle and challenges traditional security models built around runtime detection.

Global financial losses from these attacks are projected to reach USD 60 billion by year-end, underlining the economic impact of upstream compromise.

Dependencies and pipelines dominate entry points

The report identifies software dependencies, build pipelines, and container images as the primary attack vectors. Together, they account for 75% of all observed supply chain attack entry points in 2025.

Key findings include:

• 35% of attacks originated from compromised dependencies

• 22% targeted CI/CD pipelines and build environments

• 20% involved poisoned or unverified container images

• 18% resulted from maintainer account takeovers

Once malicious code enters a base container image, it can propagate across all downstream services that reuse it, significantly expanding the blast radius across environments.

Sector impact varies by exposure

While vulnerabilities are common across industries, the consequences of upstream compromise differ by sector. Banking and financial services face regulatory penalties and audit failures due to traceability gaps.

E-commerce organisations reported checkout disruptions and revenue loss linked to dependency failures, while media and entertainment companies experienced intellectual property theft and content manipulation through compromised AI-driven pipelines.

The analysis notes that BFSI carries the highest regulatory exposure, e-commerce faces the greatest revenue risk due to rapid deployment cycles, and media and entertainment bear heightened legal and IP-related risk.

Visibility gaps weaken enterprise readiness

A critical concern highlighted is the lack of visibility across extended software supply chains. Fewer than half of enterprises currently monitor more than 50% of their upstream components, leaving large portions of their environments exposed to compromise.

Runtime security controls frequently detect threats too late, reinforcing the need for build-time validation rather than post-deployment remediation. Despite rising attack volumes, overall industry maturity remains between Level 1 and Level 2, characterised by scan-only approaches and limited operational control.

Readiness benchmarks remain unmet

As organisations approach 2026, the report warns that most enterprises fail to meet basic supply chain security readiness benchmarks. These include the ability to locate compromised components within one hour and rebuild affected workloads within four hours.

Supply chain security is also influencing procurement, audit, and insurance decisions. Software provenance and SBOM disclosures are increasingly treated as commercial requirements rather than optional best practices.

Reflecting on the findings, Nilesh Jain, CEO and Founder, CleanStart, said that 2025 marked the point when software supply chain risk became measurable, highlighting the growing need for verifiable foundations over unchecked delivery speed.

As enterprises move into 2026, the report concludes that addressing software supply chain security risks in 2026 will require shifting security controls upstream, improving visibility, and proving software integrity across increasingly complex development ecosystems.