GitHub Advanced Security

GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) offers a list of features designed to enhance the security of your codebase, automate vulnerability detection, and ensure best practices in software development.

As organizations increasingly rely on GitHub for code management and collaboration, securing your repositories from potential threats becomes more important. In this article, we will see a detailed overview of GitHub Advanced Security.

What is GitHub Advanced Security?

GitHub Advanced Security is a set of advanced security tools integrated directly into GitHub, designed to protect your code from vulnerabilities, insecure dependencies, and other security threats. GHAS includes capabilities like code scanning, secret scanning, dependency review, and security policies that help developers identify and remediate security issues within their workflows.

Key Features of GitHub Advanced Security

• Code Scanning: Automatically scans your codebase for security vulnerabilities and coding errors using GitHub’s CodeQL. Code scanning helps you identify security flaws as part of your continuous integration (CI) workflow.
• Secret Scanning: Detects secrets (like API keys, tokens, and credentials) that have been accidentally committed to your repositories.
• Dependency Review: Provides insight into the security impact of changes in your dependencies.
• Dependency Graph and Dependabot Alerts: Visualizes your repository’s dependencies and alerts you when vulnerabilities are detected. Dependabot automatically scans your dependencies for known vulnerabilities and can open pull requests to update them to secure versions.
• Security Policies and Advisories: This allows you to create security policies for your repositories, defining how vulnerabilities should be reported and handled.

Setting Up GitHub Advanced Security

To start using GitHub Advanced Security, you need to enable it for your repositories. GHAS is available on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Enterprise Server, and it can be enabled at the repository or organization level.

Enabling Code Scanning

• Navigate to Your Repository: Go to the repository where you want to enable code scanning.
• Set Up a Workflow: Click on the Security tab, then click on Set up code scanning.
• Choose a Workflow: Select Set up this workflow to use GitHub’s default CodeQL workflow or configure a custom workflow if needed.
• Commit the Workflow File: Review and commit the .github/workflows/codeql-analysis.yml file to the repository. This file defines the CI job that will scan your code for vulnerabilities.

Enabling Secret Scanning

• Navigate to Your Repository: Go to your repository and click on the Settings tab.
• Enable Secret Scanning: Under Security & Analysis, find Secret Scanning and click Enable. Secret scanning will now monitor your repository for any exposed secrets.

Enabling Dependency Review

• Navigate to Your Repository: Go to your repository and click on the Security tab.
• Enable Dependency Graph: Ensure that the dependency graph is enabled. This is required for dependency review to function.
• Review Dependency Changes: When creating pull requests, GitHub will automatically display dependency changes and highlight any security concerns related to the updates.

Using GitHub Advanced Security Features

Code Scanning with CodeQL

Code scanning uses CodeQL queries to analyze your code and detect vulnerabilities:

• Automatic Scans: By default, code scanning runs automatically on push events. You can also manually trigger scans or schedule them to run periodically.
• Custom Queries: You can write custom CodeQL queries tailored to your specific security needs. GitHub provides a library of CodeQL queries that cover common security issues across various programming languages.

Example of running a CodeQL workflow:

name: "CodeQL"
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  analyze:
    name: Analyze
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Initialize CodeQL
        uses: github/codeql-action/init@v2
      - name: Perform CodeQL Analysis
        uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v2

Secret Scanning Alerts

Secret scanning identifies exposed secrets within your codebase:

• Alerts and Notifications: When a secret is detected, GitHub notifies repository admins and contributors through alerts. You can view these alerts in the Security tab.
• Remediation Steps: GitHub provides guidance on how to mitigate the risk, such as rotating keys, revoking access, and updating credentials.

Dependency Review and Dependabot Alerts

• Dependency Insights: View detailed information about your project’s dependencies and their known vulnerabilities.
• Automated PRs: Dependabot automatically opens pull requests to update vulnerable dependencies to their latest secure versions.
• Review Changes: Use the dependency review feature in pull requests to assess the security impact of dependency updates.

Best Practices for GitHub Advanced Security

• Regularly Monitor Security Alerts: Stay on top of alerts for code vulnerabilities, secret exposures, and dependency risks.
• Integrate Security into CI/CD: Make security checks an integral part of your CI/CD pipelines. Automated scans help catch issues early, reducing the risk of deploying insecure code.
• Use Custom CodeQL Queries: Extend GitHub’s security capabilities by writing custom CodeQL queries that address specific security concerns relevant to your application.
• Protect Sensitive Data: Use secret scanning to detect and remediate exposed credentials. Always rotate compromised secrets immediately to prevent unauthorized access.
• Educate Your Team: Ensure that all team members understand the importance of secure coding practices and are familiar with using GitHub Advanced Security features.

GitHub Advanced Security Pricing

GitHub Advanced Security is available as part of GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Enterprise Server plans. Pricing is based on the number of committed lines of code analyzed per month, with flexible options to fit different organizational needs. To enable GitHub Advanced Security features, ensure your account is on the appropriate plan and has the necessary permissions.