# Avoiding the Next Supply Chain Disaster with GitHub and Gradle

DevFeed: [Avoiding the Next Supply Chain Disaster with GitHub and Gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/avoiding-the-next-supply-chain-disaster-with-github-and-gradle-24596.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.gradle.org/avoid-supply-chain-disaster-with-github-gradle>)

Author: Tom Tresansky

Published: 2026-02-25T05:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The Gradle Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-gradle-blog.md>)

Topics: [supply-chain-security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/supply-chain-security.md>), [Gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gradle.md>), [GitHub](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/github.md>), [Vulnerabilities](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/vulnerabilities.md>), [Reverse Dependencies](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/reverse-dependencies.md>), [Java](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/java.md>), [Android](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/android.md>), [Maven](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/maven.md>), [npm](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/npm.md>), [Logging](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/logging.md>)

Tags: [dependencies](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dependencies.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [github](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/github.md>), [gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gradle.md>), [java](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/java.md>), [locking](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/locking.md>), [logging](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/logging.md>), [npm](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/npm.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [supply-chain](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/supply-chain.md>), [supply-chain-attacks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/supply-chain-attacks.md>), [supply-chain-security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/supply-chain-security.md>), [vulnerabilities](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vulnerabilities.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains how GitHub and Gradle can help Android and JVM developers reduce software supply-chain risk. It covers dependency drift, vulnerability exposure, resolved dependency visibility, continuous monitoring, automated fixes, and Build Scan® analysis, with Shai-Hulud and Log4Shell as examples of supply-chain threats.

## Source excerpt

Supply chain security is a big deal, and it's dangerously easy to ignore. For Android or JVM developers, the sheer scale of the ecosystem is our greatest strength, and our greatest risk. When you build an application, you aren't just responsible for your own code; you're responsible for a massive, invisible tree of dependencies. This presents two distinct security challenges: Dependency Drift: Resolved dependencies can appear, disappear, or change versions without you ever touching your build.gradle.(kts) file. A bad actor can slip a malicious artifact into your dependency graph unnoticed. Vulnerability Exposure: Even locking your dependencies to avoid unexpected changes doesn't absolve you from monitoring their state. A library you've used for years might have a critical vulnerability (CVE) discovered tomorrow. We've recently seen this play out in the wild with attacks like the Shai-Hulud npm supply-chain exploit, where attackers poisoned popular packages to execute arbitrary code downstream, and the critical Log4Shell vulnerability, which demonstrated the catastrophic risk posed by an exploit in a foundational Java logging library. We recently outlined our defense against supply chain attacks in our deep dives on continuous GRC and our Nx vulnerability response. The good news: if your Gradle projects live on GitHub, you already have everything you need to minimize your known vulnerability count, without manually auditing resolved dependencies all day. In this post, we'll walk through how GitHub and Gradle work together to: Give you a complete, accurate view of your resolved dependencies Continuously monitor those dependencies for vulnerabilities Automatically propose and validate fixes Use our free Build Scan® service to understand what changed and why Why dependency monitoring is harder than it looks Unlike more traditional build tools like Maven, which rely on relatively static dependency declarations, Gradle is a dynamic, highly programmable build engine. While