Bastion Host Replacement SBOM: Securing Access with Full Visibility

Every breach report said the same thing: bastion hosts are high-value targets. They sit at the edge of your infrastructure, exposed to the internet, trusted to grant the right people the right access. One wrong config, one unpatched service, and the damage spreads fast. That’s why so many teams today are replacing bastion hosts altogether. The smarter path is software-defined access with full visibility, backed by a precise Software Bill of Materials (SBOM).

A Bastion Host Replacement SBOM is more than a spreadsheet. It’s a living map of every component that powers your new access control platform. It lists each dependency, library, API, and service—plus versions, licenses, and known vulnerabilities. Without it, you can’t prove what you’re running, let alone block supply chain attacks. With it, you can move faster and still meet compliance in finance, healthcare, and government environments.

When replacing a bastion host, the SBOM must include:

• The access control gateway service and its OS build
• Authentication libraries (OAuth, SAML, OpenID Connect)
• Logging and monitoring agents
• Encryption modules for data in transit and at rest
• API dependencies called by your access platform
• Any embedded third-party code or binaries in the deployment

Generating this SBOM isn’t just about regulation. It’s the best way to verify every component before production. It closes the gap between development and security by giving you a source of truth that both engineers and auditors can trust. Scan it regularly, store it securely, and keep it in sync with your deployments.

The right Bastion Host Replacement solution will output a complete, machine-readable SBOM automatically. You should be able to diff these SBOMs across versions, so drift stands out like a siren. You should be able to integrate the SBOM into your CI/CD pipeline, so unsafe components never reach live systems. And you should be able to trace any dependency all the way back to the commit that introduced it.

Old bastion hosts were architecture debt. They forced you to manage static endpoints while attackers automated their way past static defenses. The modern model removes the inbound port entirely and replaces it with ephemeral, authenticated tunnels that exist only when needed—governed by policies, not manual SSH keys. Pair that with a complete SBOM and you have a transparent, inspectable, and defensible access layer.

You don’t have to build this from scratch. See how fast you can replace a bastion host, secure every dependency, and get a full SBOM—live in minutes—at hoop.dev.