Forrester: The State of Application Security, 2022

GitHub scanning tool to detect secrets in your source code

GitGuardian Internal Repository Monitoring helps prevent secret sprawl

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Scanning GitHub for secrets

Currently the largest host of source code in the world, GitHub has been adopted by many companies for software development and version control using the git protocol.

However, running security audits at the end of the software development life cycle is a huge amount of work for security teams.

Modern organizations, therefore, decide to shift left so that development, operations, and security teams can scan and test their code in GitHub at each step of the development process, reducing the vulnerability surface.

Sensitive data has to be available for developers. How can you make sure it is not in their code ?

Applications are becoming increasingly modular and secrets are necessary to link all these components. API keys or database credentials give access to multiple systems including cloud infrastructure, databases, payment systems. Having critical secrets in your code base is like leaving your keys on your front door.

Secrets are widely exposed and are prone to spread

This problem has a name: “secret sprawl”. Secrets can be hardcoded in configuration files or source code to save time for tests, they can be shared to colleagues for simplicity’s sake. Malicious actors can exploit this to move laterally and become persistent in the systems. Secrets are becoming more accessible internally, but also externally.

Developers are confronted to a faster Software Development Life Cycle

Human error can happen. But when teams are under pressure, it is all the more likely. With more to be done and less time to do it, developers can leak secrets by mistake. Running an analysis that scans the source code for security vulnerabilities can identify these mistakes.