Free and Premium GitHub GitHub-Advanced-Security Dumps Questions Answers

In a workflow: GitHub Actions workflows are the most common place for CodeQL code scanning. The codeql-analysis.yml defines how the analysis runs and when it triggers.

In an external CI system: GitHub allows you to run CodeQL analysis outside of GitHub Actions. Once complete, the results can be uploaded using the upload-sarif action to make alerts visible in the repository.

You cannot run or trigger analysis from third-party repositories directly, and theFiles changed tabin pull requests only shows diff — not analysis results.

Youmust enable secret scanningbefore defining custom patterns. Secret scanning provides the foundational capability for detecting exposed credentials, and custom patterns build upon that by allowing organizations to specify their own regex-based patterns for secrets unique to their environment.

Without enabling secret scanning, GitHub will not process or apply custom patterns.

Thefirst stepwhen you receive a secret scanning alert is torevoke the secretif it is still valid. This ensures the secret can no longer be used maliciously. Only after revoking it should you proceed to remove it from the code history and apply other mitigation steps.

Simply deleting the secret from the code doesnotremove the risk if it hasn’t been revoked — especially since it may already be exposed in commit history.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

When setting up CodeQL analysis for compiled languages, there are two primary methods to buildyour code:​

GitHub Docs

Autobuild: CodeQL attempts to automatically build your codebase using the most likely build method. This is suitable for standard build processes.​

GitHub Docs

Custom Build Steps: For complex or non-standard build processes, you can implement custom build steps by specifying explicit build commands in your workflow. This provides greater control over the build process.​

GitHub Docs

The init action initializes the CodeQL analysis but does not build the code. The jobs.analyze.runs-on specifies the operating system for the runner but is not directly related to building the code. Uploading compiled binaries is not a method supported by CodeQL for analysis.​

To ensure you're notified whenever a vulnerability is detected via Dependabot, you mustenablealerts for Dependabotin your personal notification settings. This applies to both new and existing repositories. It ensures you get timely alerts about security vulnerabilities.

The dependency graph must be enabled for scanning, but does not send alerts itself.

Dependabot alerts are generated as soon as GitHub detects a known vulnerability in one of your dependencies. GitHub does this by analyzing your repository’s dependency graph and matching it against vulnerabilities listed in the GitHub Advisory Database. Once a match is found, the system raises an alert automatically without waiting for a PR or manual action.

This allows organizations to proactively mitigate vulnerabilities as early as possible, based on real-time detection.

When using a SARIF-compatible tool within GitHub Actions, it's necessary to explicitly add a step in your workflow to upload the analysis results. This is typically done using the upload-sarif action, which takes the SARIF file generated by your tool and uploads it to GitHub for processing and display in the Security tab. Without this step, the results won't be available in GitHub's code scanning interface.​

To exclude specific files or directories from being scanned by secret scanning in GitHub Actions, you can use thepaths-ignore:key within your YAML workflow file.

This tells GitHub toignore specified pathswhen scanning for secrets, which can be useful for excluding test data or non-sensitive mock content.

Other options listed are invalid:

branches-ignore: excludes branches, not files.

decrypt_secret.sh is not a YAML key.

secret scanning.yml is not a recognized filename for configuration.

Secret scanning is a feature provided by GitHub that scans the contents of your GitHub repositories for known types of secrets, such as API keys and tokens. It operates within the GitHub environment and does not scan external systems, services, or repositories outside of GitHub. Its primary function is to prevent the accidental exposure of sensitive information within your GitHub-hosted code.​

In a repository'sSecuritytab, you can view:

Secret scanning alerts: Exposed credentials or tokens

Dependabot alerts: Vulnerable dependencies from the advisory database

Code scanning alerts: Vulnerabilities in code detected via static analysis (e.g., CodeQL)

Youwon’t seegeneral "security status alerts" (not a formal category) or permission-related alerts here.

Whenmultiple instances of the same secret valueappear in a repository,only one alertis generated. Secret scanning works by identifying exposed credentials and token patterns, and it groups identical matches into asingle alertto reduce noise and avoid duplication.

This makes triaging easier and helps teams focus on remediating the actual exposed credential rather than reviewing multiple redundant alerts.

When secret scanning is enabled on a private repository,GitHub performs a read-only analysisof the repository's contents. This includes the entire Git history and files to identify strings that match known secret patterns or custom-defined patterns.

GitHub does not alter the repository, and enabling secret scanningdoes not automatically enablecode scanning or dependency review — each must be configured separately.

In a dependabot.yml configuration file,package-ecosystemis arequired key. It defines the package manager being used in that update configuration (e.g., npm, pip, maven, etc.).

Without this key, Dependabot cannot determine how to analyze or update dependencies. Other keys like rebase-strategy or commit-message are optional and used for customizing behavior.

Secrets committed and then deleted are still accessible in therepository’s Git history. To locate them, navigate to theCommitstab. GitHub's secret scanning can detect secrets in both current and historical commits, which is why remediation should also includerevoking the secret, not just removing it from the latest code.

All results from CodeQL analysis appear under therepository’s code scanning alertstab. This section is part of theSecuritytab and provides a list of all current, fixed, and dismissed alerts found by CodeQL.

A CodeQL database is used internally during scanning but does not display results. Query packs contain rules, not results. Security advisories are for published vulnerabilities, not per-repo findings.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Push protection for secret scanning custom patterns is an opt-in feature. This means that for each custom pattern defined in a repository, maintainers can choose to enable or disable push protectionindividually. This provides flexibility, allowing teams to enforce push protection on sensitive patterns while leaving it disabled for others.​

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

For code scanning to be triggered on a specific branch, the branch must contain the appropriate workflow file, typically located in the .github/workflows directory. This YAML file defines the code scanning configuration and specifies the events that trigger the scan (e.g., push, pull_request).​

Without the workflow file in the branch, GitHub Actions will not execute the code scanning process for that branch. The repository's visibility (private or public), the status of secret scanning, or the activity level of developers do not directly influence the triggering of code scanning.​

Dependabot security updatesareautomated pull requeststriggered when GitHub detects avulnerabilityin a dependency listed in your manifest or lockfile. These PRs upgrade the dependency to theminimum safe versionthat fixes the vulnerability.

This is separate from regular updates (which keep versions current even if not vulnerable).

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Before defining a custom pattern for secret scanning in a repository, you must enable secretscanning for that repository. Secret scanning must be active to utilize custom patterns, which allow you to define specific formats (using regular expressions) for secrets unique to your organization.​

Once secret scanning is enabled, you can add custom patterns to detect and prevent the exposure of sensitive information tailored to your needs.​

To create or modify acode scanning workflow file(typically under .github/workflows/codeql-analysis.yml), you must haveWriteaccess to the repository.

Write permission allows you to commit the workflow file, which is required to run or configure code scanning using GitHub Actions.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

By default, users with write access to a repository have the ability to merge pull requests, including those created by Dependabot for security updates. This access level allows contributors to manage and integrate changes, ensuring that vulnerabilities are addressed promptly.​

Users with only read access cannot merge pull requests, and enterprise administrators do not automatically have merge rights unless they have write or higher permissions on the specific repository.​

Validity checks— where GitHub verifies if a secret is still active — are available forpartner patternsonly. These are secrets issued by GitHub's trusted partners (like AWS, Slack, etc.) and have APIs for GitHub to validate token activity status.

Custom patterns and high entropy patterns donotsupport automated validity checks.