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This version of GitHub Enterprise Server was discontinued on 2024-01-04. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise Server. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

GitHub security features

An overview of GitHub security features.

About GitHub's security features

GitHub has security features that help keep code and secrets secure in repositories and across organizations. Some features are available for all repositories. Additional features are available to enterprises that use GitHub Advanced Security. For more information, see "About GitHub Advanced Security."

The GitHub Advisory Database contains a curated list of security vulnerabilities that you can view, search, and filter. For more information, see "Browsing security advisories in the GitHub Advisory Database."

Available for all repositories

Security policy

Make it easy for your users to confidentially report security vulnerabilities they've found in your repository. For more information, see "Adding a security policy to your repository."

Dependabot alerts and security updates

View alerts about dependencies that are known to contain security vulnerabilities, and choose whether to have pull requests generated automatically to update these dependencies. For more information, see "About Dependabot alerts" and "About Dependabot security updates."

For an overview of the different features offered by Dependabot and instructions on how to get started, see "Dependabot quickstart guide."

Dependabot version updates

Use Dependabot to automatically raise pull requests to keep your dependencies up-to-date. This helps reduce your exposure to older versions of dependencies. Using newer versions makes it easier to apply patches if security vulnerabilities are discovered, and also makes it easier for Dependabot security updates to successfully raise pull requests to upgrade vulnerable dependencies. You can also customize Dependabot version updates to streamline their integration into your repositories. For more information, see "About Dependabot version updates."

Dependency graph

The dependency graph allows you to explore the ecosystems and packages that your repository depends on and the repositories and packages that depend on your repository.

You can find the dependency graph on the Insights tab for your repository. For more information, see "About the dependency graph."

Security overview

Security overview allows you to review the overall security landscape of your organization, view trends and other insights, and manage security configurations, making it easy to monitor your organization's security status and identify the repositories and organizations at greatest risk. For more information, see "About security overview."

Available with GitHub Advanced Security

GitHub Advanced Security features are available for enterprises with a license for GitHub Advanced Security. The features are restricted to repositories owned by an organization. For more information, see "About GitHub Advanced Security."

Code scanning

Automatically detect security vulnerabilities and coding errors in new or modified code. Potential problems are highlighted, with detailed information, allowing you to fix the code before it's merged into your default branch. For more information, see "About code scanning."

Secret scanning

Automatically detect tokens or credentials that have been checked into a repository. You can view alerts for any secrets that GitHub finds in your code, in the Security tab of the repository, so that you know which tokens or credentials to treat as compromised. For more information, see "About secret scanning."

Dependency review

Show the full impact of changes to dependencies and see details of any vulnerable versions before you merge a pull request. For more information, see "About dependency review."

Further reading