Widespread attacks including exploits of the recent Log4Shell vulnerability have mobilized organizations to understand and reduce software supply chain security risk by adopting best practices.In the last 12 months, more than 70 percent of survey respondents in the technology sectors were impacted by a software supply chain attack, with 50 percent of …Jun 15, 2023 · Software supply chain security aims to secure the components and activities that go into developing and deploying an application, such as people, processes, dependencies, and tools. Software supply chain security differs from traditional application security, which focuses on tools, technologies, and automated processes used to identify, fix ...Nov 9, 2021 · The Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks guide from Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency considers that the Software Supply Chain Lifecycle has six phases where “software is at risk of malicious or inadvertent introduction of vulnerabilities” : Design. Development and production.Oct 22, 2020 · Supply chain leaders tell us they are concerned about cyber threats, so in this blog, we are going to focus on the cybersecurity aspects to protecting the quality and delivery of products and services, and the associated data, processes and systems involved. “Supply chain security is a multi-disciplinary problem, and requires close ... In today’s fast-paced and highly competitive business environment, it is crucial for companies to have efficient and effective supply chain management systems in place. One key com...4 days ago · Developing Secure Software: Foundational software development practices in the context of software supply chain security. The course focuses on best practices for designing, developing, and testing code, but also covers topics such as handling vulnerability disclosures, assurance cases, and considerations for software distribution …A reliable path to an actionable understanding of the risks that can impact the trustworthiness of supplies, suppliers, and services is essential. The System of Trust Framework aims to provide a comprehensive, consistent, and repeatable supply chain security risk assessment process that is customizable, evidence-based, and scalable, …Oct 11, 2022 · The term software supply chain is used to refer to everything that goes into your software and where it comes from. It is the dependencies and properties of your dependencies that your software supply chain depends on. A dependency is what your software needs to run. It can be code, binaries, or other components, and where they come from, such ... Jul 11, 2022 · The President’s Executive Order (EO) 14028 on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity issued on May 12, 2021, charges multiple agencies – including NIST – with enhancing cybersecurity through a variety of initiatives related to the security and integrity of the software supply chain. Section 4 directs NIST to solicit input from the private ... Feb 12, 2024 · A salient feature of this paradigm is the use of flow processes called continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, which initially take the software through various stages (e.g., build, test, package, and deploy) in the form of source code through operations that constitute the software supply chain (SSC) in order to ... Understanding your software supply chain. About supply chain security. About the dependency graph. Configuring the dependency graph. Exporting a software bill of materials for your repository. Using the dependency submission API. About dependency review. Configuring dependency review.Software supply-chain model for holistic end-to-end security. The security of the software supply chain is fundamental to the security of the final product. A ...Software Supply Chain Security [Book] by Cassie Crossley. Released February 2024. Publisher (s): O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN: 9781098133702. Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform …Jan 6, 2020 · 软件供应链安全综述. (1.中国科学院大学 国家计算机网络入侵防范中心 北京 中国 101408;2.西安电子科技大学 网络与信息安全学院 西安 中国 710071;3.中国科学院信息工程研究所 北京 中国 100093) 随着信息技术产业的发展和软件开发需求的扩展，软件开发的难度与 ... supply chain security. Supply chain security is the part of supply chain management that focuses on the risk management of external suppliers, vendors, logistics and transportation. Its goal is to identify, analyze and mitigate the risks inherent in working with other organizations as part of a supply chain. Supply chain security involves both ... Mar 18, 2024 · Proposing a series of 12 principles, designed to help you establish effective control and oversight of your supply chain.Jan 6, 2020 · 软件供应链安全综述. (1.中国科学院大学 国家计算机网络入侵防范中心 北京 中国 101408;2.西安电子科技大学 网络与信息安全学院 西安 中国 710071;3.中国科学院信息工程研究所 北京 中国 100093) 随着信息技术产业的发展和软件开发需求的扩展，软件开发的难度与 ...It is similar to an SCM in that it is software, it is composed of both first- and third-party code which means there will be all of the same associated risks to ...Jun 16, 2021 · SLSA is a practical framework for end-to-end software supply chain integrity, based on a model proven to work at scale in one of the world’s largest software engineering organizations. Achieving the highest level of SLSA for most projects may be difficult, but incremental improvements recognized by lower SLSA levels will already go a long way ... Software Supply Chain Security is a key component of the Aqua Platform, the most integrated Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP). It allows you to realize proactive security across the entire software development life cycle (SDLC) including code, build, deploy, and run phases. For attacks that are discovered in runtime, use the ... Jan 16, 2024 · Loose development practices and inattention to software supply chain risks persist, ReversingLabs found. The State of Software Supply Chain Security 2024 is ReversingLabs’ second annual assessment of software supply chain security. The report gives an overview of the 2023 threat landscape, analyzes what has changed since 2022, …Apr 27, 2022 · NIST provides recommendations for federal agency acquirers on how to enhance software supply chain security and meet the requirements of the EO on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. The guidance covers EO-critical software, software cybersecurity, software verification, and software bill of materials, among other topics. Feb 6, 2024 · The software supply chain security landscape has shifted considerably over the last year. Two of the most significant changes have been the move to a more formalized definition of the term "software supply chain security” and the development of a better understanding of what is needed to secure the software development lifecycle (SDLC).Mar 24, 2022 · Software is complex, not only due to the code within a given project, but also due to the vast ecosystem of dependencies and transitive dependencies upon which each project relies. Recent years have observed a sharp uptick of attacks on the software supply chain spurring invigorated interest by industry and government alike. We held three …Software supply chain security tools provide automated and continuous monitoring of the various components and stages of the software development process. This includes analyzing the source code, identifying potential security risks, scanning for malicious code, and verifying the authenticity of third-party components and dependencies. ...Sep 30, 2021 · Remember that the standards and risk tolerances that are baked into policies for supply chain security risks may be different from those of traditional software vulnerabilities (e.g., CVEs from open source components developers select, CWEs in custom code), due to the lack of control over remediation for risks ingested via the software supply ...Supply chain security involves both physical security relating to products and cybersecurity for software and services. Because supply chains can vary greatly ...Jun 18, 2022 · This section will discuss main principles and definitions related to supply chain security and risk. 2.1 Supply Chain Security. Closs and McGarrell defined supply chain security as: “The application of policies, procedures, and technology to protect supply chain assets (product, facilities, equipment, information, and personnel) from theft, damage, or terrorism … To help improve the security of DevOps practices, the NCCoE is planning a DevSecOps project that will focus initially on developing and documenting an applied risk-based approach and recommendations for secure DevOps and software supply chain practices consistent with the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF), Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM), and other NIST ... Sep 20, 2022 · Software supply chain attacks have an enormous blast radius and affect multiple targets by compromising a single, shared resource. And these types of attacks are on the rise: Aqua research showed an increase of 300% year-over-year. In the United States, the issue is of such great importance that the Biden Administration issued …1 day ago · App Security Blueprint 2024 Learn How to Build a Multi-Layered App Defense. From oversight to overwatch: Discover the art of bulletproof app security with our elite panel of …A reliable path to an actionable understanding of the risks that can impact the trustworthiness of supplies, suppliers, and services is essential. The System of Trust Framework aims to provide a comprehensive, consistent, and repeatable supply chain security risk assessment process that is customizable, evidence-based, and scalable, …Jul 17, 2014 · Supply chain: all suppliers contributing to the content of a product or system or having the opportunity to modify the content SOFTWARE SUPPLY-CHAIN RISK Software acquisition has grown from the delivery of standalone systems to the provisioning of technical capabilities integrated within a larger systemof- - systems (SoS) context.The first SBOM-powered platform for securing your software supply chain. Anchore Enterprise is the first SBOM-powered software supply chain management platform for continuous security and compliance. Embed security and compliance checks into each step of your development lifecycle for more secure cloud-native applications.Software supply-chain model for holistic end-to-end security. The security of the software supply chain is fundamental to the security of the final product. A ... The software supply chain encompasses everything influencing or playing a role in a product or application during its entire software development life cycle (SDLC). In recent years, attacks on the software supply chain are becoming more prevalent and more sophisticated. In their 2022 report, Gartner states: ”Anticipate the continuous expansion of the enterprise attack surface and increase ... Widespread attacks including exploits of the recent Log4Shell vulnerability have mobilized organizations to understand and reduce software supply chain security risk by adopting best practices. In the last 12 months, more than 70 percent of survey respondents in the technology sectors were impacted by a software supply chain attack, with 50 ... Nov 9, 2021 · The Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks guide from Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency considers that the Software Supply Chain Lifecycle has six phases where “software is at risk of malicious or inadvertent introduction of vulnerabilities” : Design. Development and production.It identifies four stages of a software supply chain attack and proposes three security properties crucial for a secured supply chain: transparency, validity, and separation. The paper describes current security approaches and maps them to the proposed security properties, including research ideas and case studies of supply chains in practice.Jun 18, 2022 · This section will discuss main principles and definitions related to supply chain security and risk. 2.1 Supply Chain Security. Closs and McGarrell defined supply chain security as: “The application of policies, procedures, and technology to protect supply chain assets (product, facilities, equipment, information, and personnel) from theft, damage, or terrorism …2 days ago · Deliver Trusted Software with Speed The only software supply chain platform to give you end-to-end visibility, security, and control for automating delivery of trusted releases. Bring together DevOps, DevSecOps and MLOps teams in a single source of truth.6 days ago · March 20, 2024. The recent surge in high-profile software supply chain attacks has exposed a soft underbelly of modern computing and prompted a major global response to address security defects and third-party risk management. Join us as we explore the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on ...May 11, 2022 · The supply chain also includes people, such as outsourced companies, consultants, and contractors. The primary focus of software supply chain security is to combine risk management and cybersecurity principles. Doing so allows you to detect, mitigate, and minimize the risks associated with these third-party components in your …Nov 17, 2022 · The Securing Software Supply Chain Series is an output of the Enduring Security Framework (ESF), a public-private cross-sector working group led by NSA and CISA. This series complements other U.S. government efforts underway to help the software ecosystem secure the supply chain, such as the software bill of materials (SBOM) community. Nov 15, 2021 · A supply chain attack is an attempt by a threat actor to infiltrate one or many organizations’ software and cloud environments. Attackers might exploit commercial trust among software vendors and their customers, or exploit implicit trust among developer communities. For example, an attacker can inject malware into an update delivered by a ...Jul 11, 2022 · The President’s Executive Order (EO) 14028 on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity issued on May 12, 2021, charges multiple agencies – including NIST – with enhancing cybersecurity through a variety of initiatives related to the security and integrity of the software supply chain. Section 4 directs NIST to solicit input from the private ... Nov 9, 2023 · November 09, 2023. Today, CISA, the National Security Agency (NSA), and partners released Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices for Software Bill of Materials Consumption. Developed through the Enduring Security Framework (ESF), this guidance provides software developers and suppliers with industry best practices and ... Mar 18, 2024 · Proposing a series of 12 principles, designed to help you establish effective control and oversight of your supply chain.May 22, 2023 · A secure software supply chain represents another facet of Microsoft’s built-in security to enhance and maintain trust in our products. It’s a continuation of the journey we embarked upon since the launch of Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) in 2004 and represents our commitment to continually enhance Microsoft’s foundational security. Software Delivery Shield. A fully managed, end-to-end solution that enhances software supply chain security across the entire software development life cycle from development, supply, and CI/CD to runtimes. Get started today View documentation. VIDEO. Oct 11, 2023 · Learn how to secure the software supply chain from vulnerabilities and threats with this guide from CISA, NSA, and other partners. Find recommendations for software security …Nov 8, 2023 · Regulations, such as those suggested by the White House Executive Order on Securing the Software Supply Chain1, craft and enforce cybersecurity rules and requirements …Sep 12, 2022 · ABSTRACT. The software supply chain involves a multitude of tools and pro-cesses that enable software developers to write, build, and ship applications. Recently, …Software supply chain security refers to the practices, tools, and technologies to safeguard the software development and deployment process against vulnerabilities and threats. Learn why …Oct 19, 2023 · The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides solid guidance on how to protect software in the CI/CD context from SSC attacks, which are …Feb 12, 2024 · A salient feature of this paradigm is the use of flow processes called continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, which initially take the software through various stages (e.g., build, test, package, and deploy) in the form of source code through operations that constitute the software supply chain (SSC) in order to ...Sep 9, 2022 · The software supply chain involves a multitude of tools and processes that enable software developers to write, build, and ship applications. Recently, security compromises of tools or processes has led to a surge in proposals to address these issues. However, these proposals commonly overemphasize specific solutions or conflate goals, …Aug 23, 2021 · This work tries to define the new open-source software supply chain model and presents a detailed survey of the security issues in the new open-source software supply chain architecture. Various emerging technologies, such as blockchain, machine learning (ML), and continuous fuzzing as solutions to the vulnerabilities in the open …Introduction: Understanding the importance of securing software. We are witnessing an increasing trend in software supply chain attacks. Analysis by Gartner states that “by 2025, 45% of organizations worldwide will have experienced attacks on their software supply chains, a three-fold increase from 2021”. For security professionals who have been …H&M is a well-known global fashion retailer that has gained popularity for its trendy clothing at affordable prices. However, in recent years, there has been increasing scrutiny on... A software supply chain is composed of the components, libraries, tools, and processes used to develop, build, and publish a software artifact. [1] Software vendors often create products by assembling open source and proprietary software components. A software bill of materials [2] (SBOM) declares the inventory of components used to build a ... Jul 17, 2014 · Supply chain: all suppliers contributing to the content of a product or system or having the opportunity to modify the content SOFTWARE SUPPLY-CHAIN RISK Software acquisition has grown from the delivery of standalone systems to the provisioning of technical capabilities integrated within a larger systemof- - systems (SoS) context.Jul 9, 2021 · NIST today fulfilled two of its assignments to enhance the security of the software supply chain called for by a May 12, 2021, Presidential Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (14028).. That Executive Order (EO) charges multiple agencies – including NIST – with enhancing cybersecurity through a variety of initiatives …Jun 16, 2021 · SLSA is a practical framework for end-to-end software supply chain integrity, based on a model proven to work at scale in one of the world’s largest software engineering organizations. Achieving the highest level of SLSA for most projects may be difficult, but incremental improvements recognized by lower SLSA levels will already go a long way ...Nov 16, 2023 · Software supply chain security describes the set of processes that ensure the integrity, authenticity, and security of software components throughout their lifecycle. Picture a production line where raw materials are transformed into a finished product, and imagine that one of those raw materials is tainted. We agree that securing the software supply chain is fundamental, but it’s only one part of managing the software supply chain. If we as an industry only focus on security, we’re missing possibilities for innovation, maintainability, integrity, and sustainability. Software supply chain management is complex and difficult, but it’s also ... 15 Jan 2024 ... What is the software supply chain? ... The software supply chain includes all the stages involved in creating, testing, packaging, and ...Sep 9, 2022 · The software supply chain involves a multitude of tools and processes that enable software developers to write, build, and ship applications. Recently, security compromises of tools or processes has led to a surge in proposals to address these issues. However, these proposals commonly overemphasize specific solutions or conflate goals, …Nov 17, 2022 · The Securing Software Supply Chain Series is an output of the Enduring Security Framework (ESF), a public-private cross-sector working group led by NSA and CISA. This series complements other U.S. government efforts underway to help the software ecosystem secure the supply chain, such as the software bill of materials (SBOM) …Oct 19, 2023 · The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides solid guidance on how to protect software in the CI/CD context from SSC attacks, which are …Arnica helps Security & DevSecOps teams make software supply chain security and CI/CD security effective and easy. Permissions least privilege, secret scanning, code security, SBOM, and anomaly detection. Compliance for SOC2, SOX, FFIEC. Manage GitHub and other source code manager permissions in Slack or Teams. Harden your development …Mar 19, 2024 · The 2021 State of the Software Supply Chain Report studied software engineering practices from 100,000 production applications and 4,000,000 open source component migrations to uncover the newest trends in modern software development. This, along with open source supply, demand and security findings associated with the Java (Maven Central ...Sep 2, 2020 · In this post, we’ll dig into what the term “software supply chain security” means, why it matters, and how you can help secure your project’s supply chain. A software supply chain is anything that affects your software. Traditionally, a supply chain is anything that’s needed to deliver your product—including all the components you use. Jul 11, 2022 · The President’s Executive Order (EO) 14028 on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity issued on May 12, 2021, charges multiple agencies – including NIST – with enhancing cybersecurity through a variety of initiatives related to the security and integrity of the software supply chain. Section 4 directs NIST to solicit input from the private ...Mar 3, 2023 · The crux of a risk-adjusted secure software supply chain is that application developers, operations engineers and security analysts are equally responsible for building an anti-fragile, highly reliable software that is ‘secure by design’. For this, product engineering teams should consider the following quintessential building blocks to ... Sep 1, 2022 · The National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released Securing the Software Supply Chain for Developers today. The product is through the Enduring Security Framework (ESF) — a public-private cross-sector working group led by NSA and ... Apr 27, 2022 · NIST provides recommendations for federal agency acquirers on how to enhance software supply chain security and meet the requirements of the EO on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. The guidance covers EO-critical software, software cybersecurity, software verification, and software bill of materials, among other topics. Sep 20, 2022 · Software supply chain attacks have an enormous blast radius and affect multiple targets by compromising a single, shared resource. And these types of attacks are on the rise: Aqua research showed an increase of 300% year-over-year. In the United States, the issue is of such great importance that the Biden Administration issued …Jun 4, 2022 · All SUSE Products. Date: June 4, 2022. This document details how SUSE, as a long-time champion and expert of software supply chain security, prepares for SLSA L4 compliance. Disclaimer: This document is part of the SUSE Best Practices series. All documents published in this series were contributed voluntarily by SUSE employees and by third parties.Mar 19, 2024 · The Software Supply Chain PlatformFor DevOps, MLOps & Security. JFrog is the single system of record for modern software development, providing end-to-end visibility, security, and control to automate delivery of trusted releases.8 Dec 2022 ... SLSA is an open source framework for software supply chain security that includes standardized vocabulary and a checklist of controls and ...Nov 9, 2021 · NIST provides guidance resources to enhance software supply chain security based on the executive order that directs it to do so. The guidance covers criteria to evaluate software security, security practices of developers and suppliers, and tools or methods to demonstrate conformance with secure practices. Aug 23, 2021 · This work tries to define the new open-source software supply chain model and presents a detailed survey of the security issues in the new open-source software supply chain architecture. Various emerging technologies, such as blockchain, machine learning (ML), and continuous fuzzing as solutions to the vulnerabilities in the open …Oct 11, 2023 · Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks. This resource, released by CISA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), provides an overview of software supply chain risks and recommendations on how software customers and vendors can use the NIST Cyber SCRM (C-SCRM) Framework and the Secure Software …Oct 11, 2022 · The term software supply chain is used to refer to everything that goes into your software and where it comes from. It is the dependencies and properties of your dependencies that your software supply chain depends on. A dependency is what your software needs to run. It can be code, binaries, or other components, and where they come from, such ... 30 Oct 2023 ... We recommend using a formal Cyber-Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) approach teamed with a Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) to ...30 Oct 2023 ... We recommend using a formal Cyber-Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) approach teamed with a Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) to ...It identifies four stages of a software supply chain attack and proposes three security properties crucial for a secured supply chain: transparency, validity, and separation. The paper describes current security approaches and maps them to the proposed security properties, including research ideas and case studies of supply chains in practice.Put software supply chain security best practices on autopilot, ensuring the integrity of each build and generating the metadata to prove it. Stay informed. React quickly. New vulnerabilities happen, but you don’t have to spend months playing whack-a-mole with vulnerable dependencies. Kusari’s platform enables you to quickly understand the ...20 Nov 2022 ... Not only that, but a multitude of other vulnerabilities lie dormant, known or unknown, within the root of modern software applications that rely ...Visualize, maintain, and secure the dependencies in your software supply chain. Understanding your software supply chain · About supply chain security.Jan 24, 2024 · Software supply chain attacks are getting easier. ReversingLabs identified close to 11,200 unique malicious packages across three major open-source software platforms in 2023: npm, PyPI, and ...
Abstract. This IDC Market Glance looks at the emerging software supply chain security market landscape and provides a high-level and illustrative graphical overview of the market, laying out the key segments and subsegments and identifying vendors that offer solutions/capabilities in each. Bad actors have identified the software supply chain as .... Open ingles
A reliable path to an actionable understanding of the risks that can impact the trustworthiness of supplies, suppliers, and services is essential. The System of Trust Framework aims to provide a comprehensive, consistent, and repeatable supply chain security risk assessment process that is customizable, evidence-based, and scalable, and will ... Sok: Analysis of software supply chain security by establishing secure design properties. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Workshop on Software Supply Chain Offensive Research and Ecosystem Defenses, SCORED'22, page 15--24, New York, NY, USA, 2022. Association for Computing Machinery. Google Scholar Digital Library;Jul 11, 2022 · The President’s Executive Order (EO) 14028 on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity issued on May 12, 2021, charges multiple agencies – including NIST – with enhancing cybersecurity through a variety of initiatives related to the security and integrity of the software supply chain. Section 4 directs NIST to solicit input from the private ...Dec 11, 2023 · Add intelligent, automated security capabilities into your DevOps processes and streamline compliance workflows. Gain deep visibility and control over your software security posture. START FREE. Manage your software supply chain security and compliance needs in an automated and scalable way with the JFrog Platform, to deliver …The complexity of modern applications introduces security, quality, and compliance issues into the supply chain, whether inadvertently or maliciously, leaving your customers at risk. Synopsys software supply chain security solutions help you identify and manage software supply chain risks throughout the entire application development life cycle.3 days ago · Insights into the evolving Software Supply Chain Security (SSCS) risks and safeguarding SSCS landscape. In today's interconnected digital landscape, we recognise the intricate interdependencies and complexities that exist within software supply chain security ecosystem. In the recent years, the number of software supply chain security …It is similar to an SCM in that it is software, it is composed of both first- and third-party code which means there will be all of the same associated risks to ...Dec 7, 2023 · Surprisingly, 77% of CISOs believe software supply chain security is a bigger blind spot for AppSec than Gen AI or open source. The State of ASPM 2024 report was compiled from a survey of 500 U.S ...5 days ago · To help improve the security of DevOps practices, the NCCoE is planning a DevSecOps project that will focus initially on developing and documenting an applied risk-based approach and recommendations for secure DevOps and software supply chain practices consistent with the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF), …25 Sept 2023 ... One way to support a more secure supply chain is by building a robust security strategy for software development when using third-party software ...Sep 12, 2022 · ABSTRACT. The software supply chain involves a multitude of tools and pro-cesses that enable software developers to write, build, and ship applications. Recently, …20 Sept 2022 ... What security threats lurk in the software supply chain? Join David Mair, Senior Manager with the Product Security Supply Chain team at Red ...Nov 9, 2021 · NIST provides guidance resources to enhance software supply chain security based on the executive order that directs it to do so. The guidance covers criteria to evaluate …The first SBOM-powered platform for securing your software supply chain. Anchore Enterprise is the first SBOM-powered software supply chain management platform for continuous security and compliance. Embed security and compliance checks into each step of your development lifecycle for more secure cloud-native applications.Feb 1, 2022 · NIST provides practices to enhance the security of the software supply chain under Executive Order 14028, which requires federal agencies to purchase secure software. The …Jun 4, 2022 · All SUSE Products. Date: June 4, 2022. This document details how SUSE, as a long-time champion and expert of software supply chain security, prepares for SLSA L4 compliance. Disclaimer: This document is part of the SUSE Best Practices series. All documents published in this series were contributed voluntarily by SUSE employees and by third parties..