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# Provenance and Attestation (PV)

- URL: /taxonomies/software-factory/provenance-and-attestation/
- Published: 2026-10-31T13:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-29T13:00:54.107Z
- Description: Provenance and Attestation (PV): 13 threats in the software factory threat taxonomy, each with a mitigation principle and design measures.
- Author: Brett Crawley

[Taxonomies](/taxonomies/) › [Software factory](/taxonomies/software-factory/) › Provenance and Attestation

**Station 09 of 17 · Line 1, Source to Artifact · 13 threats · prefix PV**

Provenance is only worth what its verifier enforces and only as honest as the platform that wrote it. These cards cover SLSA provenance, in-toto attestations, artifact signing, Sigstore and transparency logs, and the verification that is meant to act on them.

**Scope:** SLSA provenance, in-toto attestations, signing, Sigstore, transparency logs, verification.

![Table: Provenance and Attestation (PV), 13 threats with their mitigation principles and design measures. The full text is in the PDF and Excel downloads on the software factory taxonomy overview page.](https://www.ostering.com/media/posts/112/taxonomy-table-09-PV.png =1400x4617)

*Text version: every entry on this page is in the [PDF and Excel downloads](/taxonomies/software-factory/) on the overview page, where it can be searched and copied.*

## The threats

- <span id="pv-a"></span>**PV·A** Forgeable Provenance
- <span id="pv-k"></span>**PV·K** Verification Not Enforced
- <span id="pv-q"></span>**PV·Q** Wrong Identity Accepted
- <span id="pv-j"></span>**PV·J** Signing Key Compromise
- <span id="pv-10"></span>**PV·10** Build Level Read as Source Trust
- <span id="pv-9"></span>**PV·9** Attestation Substitution
- <span id="pv-8"></span>**PV·8** Unwatched Transparency Log
- <span id="pv-7"></span>**PV·7** Incomplete Provenance
- <span id="pv-6"></span>**PV·6** Downgrade to Unsigned
- <span id="pv-5"></span>**PV·5** Trust Root Distribution
- <span id="pv-4"></span>**PV·4** Unverified Delivery Path
- <span id="pv-3"></span>**PV·3** Attestation Store Tampering
- <span id="pv-2"></span>**PV·2** Claim Inflation

## Where this station touches others

- **Provenance and Attestation and SBOM and VEX:** provenance says how an artifact was made; the SBOM says what is in it. A verifier needs both to be true and both to describe the same artifact.

## Seen in the wild

- **PV·J Signing Key Compromise:** NVIDIA code-signing certificates (2022).

Sources for each case are listed on the [overview page](/taxonomies/software-factory/).

## STRIDE, CAPEC and CWE

Of the 13 entries here, STRIDE fits 10 cleanly and 3 only loosely. CAPEC 3.9 has a pattern that describes 1 of them directly, only a generic parent pattern for 9, and nothing for 3. CWE 4.20 names the weakness directly for 8, has only a broader weakness for 5,. The table below gives the mapping entry by entry, with the names of the CAPEC patterns and CWE weaknesses; what the mapping shows across the whole taxonomy is in [Mapping the Software Factory Threat Taxonomy to STRIDE, CAPEC and CWE](/mapping-the-software-factory-threat-taxonomy/). The Excel, SKOS and STIX downloads carry the same mapping as text.

![Table: STRIDE, CAPEC and CWE mapping for Provenance and Attestation (PV), 13 threats, with each entry's STRIDE categories and fit, CAPEC 3.9 patterns and CWE 4.20 weaknesses. The full mapping is in the Excel, SKOS and STIX downloads on the software factory taxonomy overview page.](https://www.ostering.com/media/posts/112/software-factory-mapping-table-09-PV.png =1400x2043)

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*© 2026 Jonathan Brett Crawley. Licensed under [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) with additional permissions: see the licence on the [software factory overview](/taxonomies/software-factory/).*
