Level up code security: An introduction to GitHub Advanced Security

The state of application security today

Modern applications are complex, the threat landscape is evolving, and the stakes are high. The three primary ways attackers access an organization are stolen credentials, phishing, and exploitation of vulnerabilities. A single vulnerability can lead to data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage.

Traditional security approaches often treat security as an afterthought, addressed late in the development lifecycle. This approach leads to increased costs, slow development, and heightened exposure to potential risks, as issues are more complex and expensive to fix at that stage.

In contrast, a "shift left" approach integrates security practices earlier in the development lifecycle. Addressing security concerns early in the development process enables developers to receive and act on feedback much sooner. By integrating security in the design and development process, developers take ownership of security, which leads to more secure coding practices and, hence, higher velocity, reliable, and secure software. This is where GitHub Advanced Security shines, as it non-intrusively shifts security left with minimum configuration.

GitHub Advanced Security

GitHub provides powerful tools that can dive deep into your code to identify existing and potential security flaws. It integrates seamlessly with your development workflows and provides immediate feedback on any potential security issues your changes might introduce. GitHub Advanced Security tools use YAML file configuration, which is already familiar to many developers and platform engineers, hence a low learning curve leading to faster adoption.

Supply Chain: Insights into your dependencies 

Organizations leverage numerous external software, such as open-source libraries, frameworks, or other tools, to develop and build their core software features. These dependencies form what is known as a "supply chain," which in turn increases the threat landscape of the code base. 

The GitHub Advanced Security Supply Chain features offer the capability to:

1. Understand the dependencies by using a dependency graph, which scans your manifest files to identify all the dependencies. These can be downloaded and exported as Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)
2. By leveraging the up-to-date GitHub Advisory Database, Dependabot Security Updates automatically detect dependency vulnerabilities. It then simplifies the remediation process by creating a pull request with in-depth information, enabling developers to review and merge the update to a secure version effortlessly.
3. Helps keep your dependencies up to date whenever there is a new version by using the Dependabot version update. 

Understanding the security of your dependencies can reduce the risk of supply chain attacks. It can also guide you in fixing alerts.

Secret protection: No more accidental spills

Secret Scanning helps you avoid the potentially disastrous consequences of accidentally exposing sensitive information. Once enabled on a repository, the secret scanning works in the background to detect any secrets. The secret scanning comes with Push protection enabled by default, which blocks users from pushing code with secrets to the repository, hence keeping your code base clean. There are different types of scans; partner scans are for known partner secrets like AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.; CoPilot Secret scanning to identify unstructured secrets like passwords; better still, you can even define your own custom pattern to scan your corporate secrets.

Code Security: The 24/7 security expert

GitHub code scanning uses CodeQL engine, which treats code as data and uses QL language to query the code for vulnerabilities using the different query packs and suites for different languages. One can use the default query suite to get more accurate results from the scans or extended versions, which might have enhanced features but also more false positives. GitHub Copilot is used to give suggestions on how to fix the detected vulnerabilities, in most cases, eliminating context switching and saving the developer the pain of browsing through the internet or Stack Overflow for potential solutions. One core outstanding feature of code scanning is the security campaigns, which can bridge the gap and pass security information between the developers and the security team. Hence, improving collaboration and working relationships.

Security Overview: Overall security posture at a glance

In addition, there’s also the ‘Security Overview’ that provides a high-level view of your organization’s security posture. It aggregates all the security alerts from code scanning, secret scanning, and dependencies, providing you with a unified view.

Closing thoughts

GitHub Advanced Security isn't just a collection of individual tools; it's a platform that enables you to build more secure software throughout the entire development lifecycle. By integrating security directly into your existing workflow, it helps you shift security left, making it a natural part of how you build software, not an afterthought.

By using the different security tools offered by GitHub Advanced Security, one quickly realizes that it is not just a collection of security tools but a paradigm shift in how security should be viewed in organizations that want to build scalable, trustworthy, and reliable software fast and efficiently. This is enhanced by embedding Copilot for faster information retrieval in all the GitHub Advanced Security tools.

GitHub Advanced Security empowers developers to take ownership of security, fostering a security-first culture within their teams. This leads to less time fixing vulnerabilities and more time building amazing things. It enables developers to build not only more secure but also more trustworthy and resilient software. This translates to increased confidence, reduced risk, and a stronger reputation for your organization.

So, what's next?

At Eficode, we don’t just implement tools, we help you unlock their full potential. As GitHub Partner of the Year, we’re uniquely positioned to support your organization in adopting and scaling GitHub Advanced Security.

From rollout and training to security audits and enterprise-level integrations, our team ensures GitHub Advanced Security becomes a core part of how you build and ship secure software.

With our recent acquisition of Solidify, our GitHub and cloud-native DevOps capabilities have grown even stronger. We’re committed to reshaping the future of software development.