AWS inspector high security documentation change

Service: inspector · 2026-06-25 · Security-related high

File: inspector/latest/user/sbomgen-plugin-developer-guide.md

Summary

Added documentation about file access confinement and clarified SBOM content sanitization limitations.

Security assessment

The change explicitly documents security controls preventing directory traversal attacks through file access confinement. It also warns developers about potential credential leakage risks in SBOM outputs.

Diff

diff --git a/inspector/latest/user/sbomgen-plugin-developer-guide.md b/inspector/latest/user/sbomgen-plugin-developer-guide.md
index 8e01d7897..66b147503 100644
--- a//inspector/latest/user/sbomgen-plugin-developer-guide.md
+++ b//inspector/latest/user/sbomgen-plugin-developer-guide.md
@@ -709 +709,3 @@ Plugins run in a sandboxed Lua VM with limited standard library access:
-Direct filesystem access via `io.open` or `os.execute` is not available. All file operations must go through the `sbomgen` API, which ensures consistent behavior across artifact types and prevents plugins from accessing files outside the artifact. 
+Direct filesystem access via `io.open` or `os.execute` is not available. All file operations must go through the `sbomgen` API, which ensures consistent behavior across artifact types. 
+
+The `sbomgen` file functions confine reads to the artifact under inventory: a path that resolves outside the artifact root (for example via `../` traversal) is rejected and returns an error. The `localhost` artifact type is the exception — it inventories the host itself, so reads are not confined to a narrower root. 
@@ -712,0 +715,4 @@ Direct filesystem access via `io.open` or `os.execute` is not available. All fil
+### SBOM contents are not sanitized
+
+The read boundary above governs what a plugin can read, not what it writes. Sbomgen does not inspect or filter the data a plugin emits into the SBOM, and does not detect or redact secrets, credentials, or other sensitive values. Whatever a plugin places into a finding appears in the output SBOM and travels wherever that SBOM is published, so only emit data derived from the artifact you intend to inventory. 
+