Jargonautica
Security and Privacy

Supply Chain Security

Also called: Software Bill of Materials

Everything you did not write but depend on: model weights downloaded from a hub, libraries, container images, third-party tool servers. Any of them can be malicious or compromised, and the model file itself can carry executable content depending on its format.

Technical view

Risks include backdoored or trojaned weights, malicious code executing on deserialisation of pickle-based checkpoint formats, typosquatted packages, compromised base images and hostile third-party tool servers whose descriptions carry injections. Controls include preferring safetensors, verifying signatures and hashes, pinning versions, scanning dependencies, generating a software bill of materials, and reviewing connector servers before enabling them.


Part of AI Terminology Index, section: Security and Privacy.

How it connects

Supply Chain Security links to 8 other terms. The faint lines are links between those terms. See it in the full graph.

Model Context ProtocolModel Context Proto…Open WeightsOpen WeightsAttack SurfaceAttack SurfaceAgent SkillsAgent SkillsTool PoisoningTool PoisoningModel Provenance and SigningModel Provenance an…Data PoisoningData PoisoningThird-party RiskThird-party RiskSupply Chain Security