Protecting pushes with secret scanning

About push protection for secrets

Up to now, secret scanning checks for secrets after a push and alerts users to exposed secrets. When you enable push protection, secret scanning also checks pushes for high-confidence secrets (those identified with a low false positive rate). Secret scanning lists any secrets it detects so the author can review the secrets and remove them or, if needed, allow those secrets to be pushed.

If a contributor bypasses a push protection block for a secret, GitHub:

• creates an alert in the Security tab of the repository in the state described in the table below.
• adds the bypass event to the audit log.

You can monitor security alerts to discover when users are bypassing push protections and creating alerts. For more information, see "Auditing security alerts".

This table shows the behavior of alerts for each way a user can bypass a push protection block.

Bypass reason	Alert behavior
It's used in tests	GitHub creates a closed alert, resolved as "used in tests"
It's a false positive	GitHub creates a closed alert, resolved as "false positive"
I'll fix it later	GitHub creates an open alert

For information on the secrets and service providers supported for push protection, see "Secret scanning patterns."

Enabling secret scanning as a push protection

For you to use secret scanning as a push protection in public repositories, the organization or repository needs to have secret scanning enabled. For more information, see "Managing security and analysis settings for your organization," "Managing security and analysis settings for your repository," and "About GitHub Advanced Security."

Organization owners, security managers, and repository administrators can also enable push protection for secret scanning via the API. For more information, see "Repositories" and expand the "Properties of the security_and_analysis object" section in the REST API documentation.

Enabling secret scanning as a push protection for an organization

You can use the organization settings page for "Code security and analysis" to enable or disable secret scanning as a push protection for all existing repositories in an organization.

1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the organization.

2. Under your organization name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the "Security" section of the sidebar, click Code security and analysis.

4. Under "Code security and analysis", find "GitHub Advanced Security."

5. Under "Secret scanning", under "Push protection", click Enable all.

6. Optionally, click "Automatically enable for repositories added to secret scanning."

For more information about enabling security features across an organization, see "Securing your organization."

Enabling secret scanning as a push protection for a repository

1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the "Security" section of the sidebar, click Code security and analysis.

4. Under "Code security and analysis", find "GitHub Advanced Security."

5. Under "Secret scanning", under "Push protection", click Enable.

Enabling push protection for a custom pattern

You can enable secret scanning as a push protection for custom patterns stored at the enterprise, organization, or repository level.

Enabling push protection for a custom pattern stored in an enterprise

Before enabling push protection for a custom pattern at enterprise level, you must also test your custom patterns in a repository before defining them for your entire enterprise, as there is no dry-run functionality. That way, you can avoid creating excess false-positive secret scanning alerts.

1. In the top-right corner of GitHub Enterprise Server, click your profile photo, then click Enterprise settings.

   

2. In the enterprise account sidebar, click Policies.

3. Under "Policies", click Advanced Security.

4. Under "GitHub Advanced Security", click the Security features tab.

5. Under "Secret scanning", under "Custom patterns", click for the pattern of interest.

6. To enable push protection for your custom pattern, scroll down to "Push Protection", and click Enable.

   

Enabling secret scanning as a push protection in an organization for a custom pattern

Before enabling push protection for a custom pattern at organization level, you must ensure that you enable secret scanning for the repositories that you want to scan in your organization. To enable secret scanning on all repositories in your organization, see "Managing security and analysis settings for your organization."

1. In the top right corner of GitHub Enterprise Server, click your profile photo, then click Your organizations.

   

2. Next to the organization, click Settings.

3. In the "Security" section of the sidebar, click Code security and analysis.

4. Under "Code security and analysis", find "GitHub Advanced Security."

5. Under "Secret scanning", under "Custom patterns", click for the pattern of interest.

6. To enable push protection for your custom pattern, scroll down to "Push Protection", and click Enable.

   Notes:

   • Push protection for custom patterns will only apply to repositories in your organization that have secret scanning as push protection enabled. For more information, see "Protecting pushes with secret scanning."
   • Enabling push protection for commonly found custom patterns can be disruptive to contributors.

   

Enabling secret scanning as a push protection in a repository for a custom pattern

Before enabling push protection for a custom pattern at repository level, you must define the custom pattern for the repository, and test it in the repository. For more information, see "Defining custom patterns for secret scanning."

1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the "Security" section of the sidebar, click Code security and analysis.

4. Under "Code security and analysis", find "GitHub Advanced Security."

5. Under "Secret scanning", under "Custom patterns", click for the pattern of interest.

6. To enable push protection for your custom pattern, scroll down to "Push Protection", and click Enable.

   

Using secret scanning as a push protection from the command line

When you attempt to push a supported secret to a repository or organization with secret scanning as a push protection enabled, GitHub will block the push. You can remove the secret from your branch or follow a provided URL to allow the push.

Up to five detected secrets will be displayed at a time on the command line. If a particular secret has already been detected in the repository and an alert already exists, GitHub will not block that secret.

If you confirm a secret is real, you need to remove the secret from your branch, from all the commits it appears in, before pushing again. For more information about remediating blocked secrets, see "Pushing a branch blocked by push protection."

If you confirm a secret is real and that you intend to fix it later, you should aim to remediate the secret as soon as possible. For example, you might revoke the secret and remove the secret from the repository's commit history. Real secrets that have been exposed must be revoked to avoid unauthorized access. You might consider first rotating the secret before revoking it. For more information, see "Removing sensitive data from a repository."

Allowing a blocked secret to be pushed

If GitHub blocks a secret that you believe is safe to push, you can allow the secret and specify the reason why it should be allowed.

When you allow a secret to be pushed, an alert is created in the Security tab. GitHub closes the alert and doesn't send a notification if you specify that the secret is a false positive or used only in tests. If you specify that the secret is real and that you will fix it later, GitHub keeps the security alert open and sends notifications to the author of the commit, as well as to repository administrators. For more information, see "Managing alerts from secret scanning."

1. Visit the URL returned by GitHub when your push was blocked.
2. Choose the option that best describes why you should be able to push the secret.
   • If the secret is only used in tests and poses no threat, click It's used in tests.
   • If the detected string is not a secret, click It's a false positive.
   • If the secret is real but you intend to fix it later, click I'll fix it later.
3. Click Allow me to push this secret.
4. Reattempt the push on the command line within three hours. If you have not pushed within three hours, you will need to repeat this process.