secret-scanning

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GitHub Advanced Security customers using secret scanning can now use the REST API to enable or disable support for non-provider patterns at the repository level.

Non-provider patterns scans for token types from generic providers, like private keys, auth headers, and connection strings.

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Code security configurations were made generally available on July 10th, 2024. This experience replaces our old settings experience and its API.

If you are currently using the REST API endpoint to enable or disable a security feature for an organization, this endpoint is now considered deprecated.

It will continue to work for an additional year in the current version of the REST API before being removed in July of 2025. However, users should note this will conflict with the settings assigned in code security configurations if the configuration is unenforced. This may result in a code security configuration being unintentionally removed from a repository.

The endpoint will be removed entirely in the next version of the REST API.

To change the security settings for repositories, you can use the code security configurations UI, the configurations API, or the unaffected enterprise-level security settings.

Send us your feedback!.

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Today, we’re excited to announce the general availability of our new organization and enterprise-level security overview dashboards, alongside enhanced secret scanning metrics and the enablement trends reports. These features are designed to provide comprehensive insights, improved prioritization, and advanced filtering options to streamline your security improvements.

Code security insights

Organization-level overview dashboard on the security tab

Our new security overview dashboard, available at both the organization and enterprise levels, integrates security into the core of the development lifecycle. This empowers you to proactively identify and address vulnerabilities. Key features include:

  • Track security improvements: Monitor trends over time by age, severity, and security tool, simplifying prioritization with top 10 lists focused on repositories and advisories.
  • Autofix impact: Understand how autofix, powered by GitHub Copilot, is influencing your enterprise’s security remediation efforts.
  • Advanced filtering: Customize data focus with filters by attributes such as team, repository metadata (i.e., custom repository properties), and security tool-specific filters:
    • Dependabot: Filter by ecosystem, package, and dependency scope.
    • CodeQL/Third-Party: Filter by specific rules.
    • Secret Scanning: Filter by secret type, provider, push protection status, and validity.

Organization-level enablement trends report

Monitor the enablement trends of all security tools with detailed insights into the activation status of Dependabot alerts, Dependabot security updates, code scanning, secret scanning alerts, and secret scanning push protection, giving you at-a-glance oversight of your security coverage.

Push protection insights for secret scanning

Organization-level secret scanning metrics page

Gain insights into how push protection is functioning throughout your enterprise. Monitor the number of pushes containing secrets that have been successfully blocked, as well as instances where push protection was bypassed. Detailed insights by secret type, repository, and reasons for bypassing are also available.

To access these features, navigate to your profile photo in the top-right corner of GitHub.com and select the organization or enterprise you wish to view. For organizations, click on the Security tab. For enterprises, click Code Security in the enterprise account sidebar.

These features are generally available on GitHub.com today and will be generally available in GitHub Enterprise Server 3.14.

Learn more about the security overview dashboard, the secret scanning metrics report and the enablement trends report

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GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers can now see code security configurations data in audit log events.

Code security configurations simplify the rollout of GitHub security products at scale by defining collections of security settings and helping you apply those settings to groups of repositories. Configurations help you change the settings for important features like code scanning, secret scanning, and Dependabot.

With the addition of configurations data in the audit log, organization and enterprise owners have easy visibility into why the settings on certain repositories may have changed.

Audit log events now include:
– Name of the configuration applied to a repository
– When the configuration application fails
– When a configuration is removed from a repository
– When configurations are created, updated, or deleted
– When configurations become enforced
– When the default configuration for new repositories changes

Code security configurations are now available in public beta on GitHub.com and will be available in GitHub Enterprise Server 3.15. You can learn more about code security configurations or send us your feedback.

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The REST API now supports the following code security configuration actions for organizations:
Detach configurations from repositories
Enforce configurations
Enable validity checks for secret scanning in a configuration

The API is now available on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and will be available in GitHub Enterprise Server 3.15.0. You can learn more about security configurations, the REST API, or send us your feedback.

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Secret scanning now detects generic passwords using AI. Passwords are difficult to find with custom patterns — the AI-powered detection offers greater precision for unstructured credentials that can cause security breaches if exposed.

Passwords found in git content will create a secret scanning alert in a separate tab from regular alerts. Passwords will not be detected in non-git content, like GitHub Issues or pull requests, and are not included in push protection. Password detection is backed by the Copilot API and is available for all repositories with a GitHub Advanced Security license. You do not need a Copilot license to enable generic secret detection.

To start detecting passwords, select “Use AI detection to find additional secrets” within your code security and analysis settings at the repository level, or the code security global settings at the organization level.

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Secret scanning now helps you more easily define custom patterns with GitHub Copilot.

Generally available as of today, you can now leverage AI to generate custom patterns without expert knowledge of regular expressions.

Generate a secret scanning custom pattern with AI

What’s changing?

Defining custom patterns is now simpler and more efficient. You can leverage AI to generate patterns via text input — without expert knowledge in regular expressions.

With secret scanning, you can create your own custom detectors by using custom patterns. Formatted as regular expressions, these custom patterns can be challenging to write. Secret scanning now supports a pattern generator backed by GitHub Copilot in order to generate regular expressions that match your input.

How do I use the regular expression generator?

When defining a custom pattern, you can select “generate with AI” in order to launch the regular expression generator.

The model returns up to three regular expressions for you to review. You can click on the regular expression to get an AI-generated plain language description of the regular expression. You should still review this input and carefully validate performance of results by performing a dry run across your organization or repository.

Who can use the regular expression generator?

All GitHub Advanced Security customers on GitHub Enterprise Cloud can use the regular expression generator today. Anyone able to define custom patterns is able to use the regular expression generator (e.g. any admin at the repository, organization, or enterprise levels). You do not need a GitHub Copilot license to use the regular expression generator.

Learn more about the regular expression generator or how to define your own custom patterns.

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Code security configurations are now generally available (GA)!

Code security configurations simplify the rollout of GitHub security products at scale. They help you define collections of security settings and apply them across groups of repositories.

Since the beta release on April 2, 2024, we’ve launched several improvements, including configuration enforcement and an API.

We have sunset the old organization-level code security settings UI experience along with the API parameters that complemented it.

All new changes to security settings must happen through the new code security configurations expereince. Organizations that were previously opted out of the experience have been opted back in. All default settings for new repositories have been migrated to a configuration called “Legacy” and automatically applied to new repos.

Learn more about code security configurations, the configurations REST API, or send us your feedback.

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Code security configurations will be made generally available (GA) on July 10th, 2024. At that point, we will sunset the organization-level code security settings UI experience along with the API parameters that complemented it.

If you are currently using the Update an organization REST API endpoint to set default security settings for new repositories, or the Get an organization REST API endpoint to retrieve current defaults for security settings on new repositories, those parameters will now be ignored. The parameters will be removed entirely in the next version of the REST API.

Your previous default settings in your organization have been saved to a code security configuration called “Legacy” and will continue to apply. To change the default security settings for new repositories, use the code security configurations UI, the configurations API, or the unaffected enterprise-level security settings.

Learn more about code security configurations, the configurations REST API, or send us your feedback.

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Delegated bypass for push protection has expanded to cover pushes from the web file editor. When your organization or repository configures a delegated bypass list for push protection, any commits from the file editor that include secrets will be blocked, and the committer will need to submit a bypass request for review.

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Starting today, validity checks will be included in the “GitHub recommended” setup through code security configurations and will be enabled for any newly attached repositories.

Please note that on July 24, validity checks will also be enabled retroactively for any repositories that had attached the GitHub recommended configuration before July 2, 2024. If you wish to directly manage feature enablement moving forward, we recommend unattaching the recommended configuration and attaching your own custom configuration to those repositories.

Learn how to secure your repositories with secret scanning, participate in the community discussion with feedback, or sign up for a 60 minute feedback session on secret scanning and be compensated for your time.

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Starting today, you can enable validity checks for your GitHub organization through security configurations. You can also enable or disable validity checks at the enterprise level for all enterprise repos.

If your organization had previously enabled validity checks through the “Global Settings” page, the feature will be migrated to your existing configurations and enabled on repositories they are attached to with no additional effort on your part.

Please note that GitHub is also adding validity checks to the “GitHub recommended” code security configuration. Any organization that has enabled the recommended configuration before today will have validity checks automatically enabled on July 24, 2024. If you wish to directly manage feature enablement, we recommend unattaching the recommended configuration and attaching your own custom configuration to those repositories.

Learn how to secure your repositories with secret scanning or sign up for a 60 minute feedback session on secret scanning and be compensated for your time.

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Starting today, you can now perform on demand validity checks for NuGet API keys and supported Azure connection strings. These checks will also continue to run on an ongoing basis.

GitHub secret scanning lets you know if your secret is active or inactive with partner validity checks. These checks are run on an ongoing basis for supported providers for any repositories that have enabled the validity check feature; you can also perform on demand validity checks from the alert details page.

Learn how to secure your repositories with secret scanning or sign up for a 60 minute feedback session on secret scanning and be compensated for your time.

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You can now use the REST API to create and manage code security configurations, as well as attach them to repositories at scale.

The API supports the following code security configuration actions for organizations:
– Create, get, update, and delete configurations
– Set and retrieve default configurations
– List all configurations
– Attach configurations to repositories

The API is now available as a public beta on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and will be available in GitHub Enterprise Server 3.15.0. You can learn more about security configurations, the REST API, or send us your feedback.

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Secret scanning’s delegated bypass for push protection allows you to specify which teams or roles have the ability to bypass push protection, and requires everyone else to submit a request to bypass. These requests are reviewed by designated approvers.

A new webhook event, bypass_request_secret_scanning, is now created when:
* bypass requests are created or cancelled
* bypass responses are submitted or dismissed
* bypass requests are completed

Delegated bypass for push protection is available for GitHub Advanced Security customers on Enterprise Cloud, and will be available on GitHub Enterprise Server 3.14.

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