You cannot protect — or migrate — what you cannot see. As quantum computing moves from theory to timeline, the organisations that stay secure will be the ones that already know exactly where every piece of cryptography lives. A Cryptographic Bill of Materials gives you that map, and CertiNext keeps it live.
What is a Cryptographic Bill of Materials?
A Cryptographic Bill of Materials (CBOM) is a structured, machine-readable inventory of every cryptographic asset in your environment — the algorithms, keys, digital certificates, protocols, and libraries in use, mapped to the applications, servers, and services that depend on them. If a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is an ingredient list for your software, a CBOM is the ingredient list for your cryptography.
CBOM is formally defined as part of the CycloneDX standard, now standardised internationally as ECMA-424. It extends the familiar bill-of-materials concept to capture cryptographic algorithms, their parameters and strength, key material, certificates, and the relationships between them — producing a single, authoritative source of truth for your cryptographic posture.
Why a CBOM Is Now Business-Critical
The quantum clock is already ticking
Adversaries are running "harvest now, decrypt later" campaigns — capturing encrypted data today to decrypt once a cryptographically relevant quantum computer arrives. With NIST having finalised its first post-quantum standards (FIPS 203 ML-KEM, FIPS 204 ML-DSA, and FIPS 205 SLH-DSA), migration to quantum-safe cryptography is no longer optional — it is a multi-year programme that has to start with an inventory.
Crypto sprawl and shadow cryptography
Certificates, keys, and hard-coded algorithms accumulate across cloud, on-premises, and endpoints faster than any team can track manually. Unknown or expired certificates cause outages; weak or deprecated algorithms (RSA-1024, SHA-1, legacy TLS) create silent exposure. A CBOM surfaces all of it.
Compliance and audit pressure
Regulators and standards bodies increasingly expect demonstrable cryptographic governance — from national post-quantum migration mandates and CNSA 2.0 timelines to eIDAS 2.0, the DPDP Act, and sector rules. A continuously generated CBOM turns "trust us" into evidence.
How CertiNext Delivers Your CBOM
CertiNext turns the CBOM from a theoretical inventory into an operational, always-current capability inside your certificate lifecycle platform.
Automated Cryptographic Discovery
Continuously scan multi-cloud, on-premises, and endpoint environments to find every certificate, key, algorithm, and cryptographic library — including the shadow crypto manual audits miss.
Real-Time CBOM Generation
Produce a standards-based, machine-readable CBOM (CycloneDX / ECMA-424) on demand, kept continuously up to date as your estate changes — not a point-in-time spreadsheet.
Risk & Vulnerability Analysis
Automatically flag weak, deprecated, or non-compliant algorithms and expiring certificates, and prioritise them by exposure so teams remediate what matters first.
Post-Quantum Migration Tracking
Identify quantum-vulnerable assets, model hybrid and quantum-safe deployment paths, and track migration progress against NIST PQC standards — the natural companion to CertiNext PQC Readiness.
Standards
Built on Open Standards
CertiNext generates CBOMs aligned to CycloneDX (ECMA-424), the internationally recognised standard for cryptographic bills of materials. Open, machine-readable output means your CBOM integrates cleanly with SIEM, GRC, and DevSecOps tooling — and stays portable across your security ecosystem rather than locked into a single vendor.
Who Uses CertiNext for CBOM
Government & Defence
National agencies and critical infrastructure operators building auditable, post-quantum-ready cryptographic governance.
Financial Services
Banks and insurers proving cryptographic compliance and eliminating certificate-driven outages across zero-trust estates.
Telecom
Operators securing 5G, CV2X, and large certificate populations while planning quantum-safe transitions.
Manufacturing & Automotive
IoT, connected-vehicle, and OT environments where device cryptography must be inventoried and rotated at scale.
Why eMudhra
Built by the People Who Issue, Manage, and Secure Your Trust
eMudhra is a globally trusted Certificate Authority and digital-trust provider. That means CertiNext does not just list your cryptography — it is built by the people who issue, manage, and secure it. From automated certificate lifecycle management and advanced key management to post-quantum readiness, your CBOM sits inside a platform designed to act on what it finds.
Frequently Asked Questions
An SBOM inventories the software components and dependencies in an application; a CBOM inventories the cryptographic assets — algorithms, keys, certificates, and protocols — and where they are used. They are complementary: an SBOM tells you what software you run, a CBOM tells you how it is protected.
Migrating to quantum-safe cryptography starts with knowing every place vulnerable algorithms are used. A CBOM provides that inventory, letting you prioritise and track the transition to NIST PQC standards instead of guessing.
CertiNext produces CBOMs aligned to the CycloneDX standard (internationally standardised as ECMA-424), so the output is open, machine-readable, and interoperable with your existing security tooling.
CertiNext generates the CBOM continuously through automated discovery, so it reflects the current state of your cryptographic estate rather than a one-off snapshot.
Yes. Because the CBOM lives inside CertiNext's certificate lifecycle and PKI platform, discovered risks — expiring certificates, weak algorithms, quantum-vulnerable assets — flow directly into remediation, renewal, and migration workflows.
