Getting Back to What Matters with GHAS 👨🏾‍💻

[ghostinhershell]

Let’s talk about security debt. The kind that quietly piles up in your open source libraries, creeps into enterprise apps, and slows down every sprint. You didn’t become a developer to chase down outdated secrets or fix the same SQLi vulnerability in 17 microservices.

GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) helps you ship safer code—without losing velocity or context. From code scanning to custom queries, security campaigns to autofix suggestions, GHAS cuts through the noise and gets you back to building.

This guide shows you how to get real value from GHAS fast. No fluff. Just the workflow and features that reduce security debt and help your team ship confidently.

🚀 Why GHAS Helps Developers Ship (Not Just Fix)

Security tools aren’t helpful if they bog you down with irrelevant alerts, false positives, or abstract dashboards. GHAS is different. It’s built to work where you work—in your repos, in your pull requests, and in your dev flow.

🔑 Here’s what makes it developer-friendly:

• Scans run in your CI/CD or PRs — no extra tooling or dashboards to learn
• Results are actionable and contextual — GHAS points directly to the vulnerable line
• Copilot offers autofix suggestions — so you can fix issues in seconds
• Security Campaigns assign alerts — so teams can fix debt, together, with accountability

Note

💡 GHAS doesn’t just find security debt. It helps your team fix it—faster.

🧪 How GHAS Works: A Quick Overview

Feature	What It Does	How It Helps	Learn More
Code Scanning (CodeQL)	Detects vulnerabilities in code	Find SQLi, XSS, deserialization issues, etc.	Using code scanning to write more secure code on GitHub
Secret Scanning + Push Protection	Flags hardcoded tokens, API keys	Prevents leaks before they hit main	How to use secret scanning on GitHub
Dependabot Alerts & Reviews	Surfaces vulnerable dependencies	Patch packages right in your PR	How to manage your dependencies on GitHub
Security Campaigns	Organizes debt into actionable work	Assign alerts, track progress, fix at scale	Fix security alerts at scale with security campaigns
Autofix (via Copilot)	Suggests fixes for common vulnerabilities	Save time on remediation	Code fixes in minutes, not months - Copilot Autofix

🛠️ Get Started Fast: First 30 Minutes with GHAS

Want to see results quickly? Here’s how to start fixing security debt in your first hour.

1. Enable GHAS on a Repository

• Navigate to your repo → Security → Code scanning alerts
• Click Set up code scanning → Use the CodeQL Analysis workflow
• Merge the PR and scan your default branch

2. View and Prioritize Alerts

• Go to Security > Code scanning alerts
• Filter by severity (start with Critical or High)
• Check how many repos have the same pattern (e.g., XSS in multiple apps)

3. Launch a Security Campaign

• At the org level, go to Security > Security Campaigns
• Choose a campaign template (e.g. “Remove deserialization risk”)
• Assign alerts by team or repo
• Track progress with built-in insights

4. Try Autofix with Copilot

• In supported languages (like JavaScript or Python), Copilot may suggest a fix directly in the PR
• Review and commit the suggestion—or modify it to fit your logic

🔍 Know Where You’re Exposed: Run a Secret Risk Assessment

Get visibility into secret exposure across your organization with GitHub’s Secret Risk Assessment. This feature provides actionable insights by scanning your organization’s public and private repositories for leaked credentials.

🧩 What It Shows:

• Total number and types of secrets exposed (e.g. tokens, keys, credentials)
• How many leaked secrets are publicly visible
• Repositories impacted per secret category (e.g. SSH keys, JSON web tokens)
• Which leaks could have been prevented via Secret Protection or Push Protection

✅ How to Run It:

• Go to your organization’s Security tab
• Look under Secret Scanning → Risk Assessment
• Review the findings by repository, severity, and secret type
• Prioritize remediation by revoking or rotating exposed credentials

Tip

⚡ Pro Tips:

• Organizations on GitHub Team or Enterprise plans get this assessment for free. Learn more here.
• You can set up custom patterns to detect secrets unique to your org (e.g., internal tokens, partner keys).

📈 Real Impact, Measured

Security Campaigns lead to 5x more issues resolved than passive alerting:

from Found means fixed: Reduce security debt at scale with GitHub security campaigns

GHAS gives you visibility and velocity. It helps developers own the security of their code, with tooling that meets them where they are.

🔁 Beyond the First Fix: What Comes Next?

Once GHAS is part of your workflow, you can:

• Automate secret scanning across the org with custom regex patterns
• Create reusable CodeQL packs tailored to your org’s risks
• Integrate GHAS with internal dashboards for executive reporting
• Standardize campaigns quarterly to chip away at long-term security debt

Note

GHAS is more than a scanner. It’s a system for secure development at scale.

🤝 Build, Ship, Go Home

Security shouldn’t feel like a detour. GHAS gives developers the tools to fix issues in flow, with minimal disruption.

Whether you're maintaining an open source package or deploying enterprise platforms, GHAS helps you build something useful—and go home on time.

💬 You’re Not Alone—Join the Conversation!

Have you tried one of these features? Did you discover something surprising about your own repos? Or maybe you’re curious about what to set up next!

Share your experiences, tips, or questions below:

• What’s one thing you learned about GHAS?
• What have you tried or want to try?
• How has implementing GHAS features helped your project?

Thanks for reading—and happy secure coding!

[Hmidqorbani]

ok ❤️

[Aman0213]

Hello

[reii23]

Thanks for sharing 👍🏻

[marcostolosa]

We’ve been rolling out GHAS across some internal and client repos, and a few things stood out:

• Code Scanning (CodeQL): Running it directly in PRs is the real win. Developers actually look at the results because they land inline, not in some external dashboard. That cuts down on the “alert fatigue” problem.
• Secret Scanning + Push Protection: We caught exposed API keys early that would’ve slipped through before. Being able to tune custom patterns for internal tokens is underrated.
• Security Campaigns: This has been surprisingly effective for scaling fixes. Instead of chasing alerts repo by repo, we treat them as a coordinated effort, which mirrors how attackers move laterally.
• Autofix: Copilot suggestions aren’t perfect, but even as a starting point they save time. In red team work we often see orgs patch superficially, autofix at least gives developers a faster baseline to iterate on.

Overall, GHAS lowers the barrier between “knowing about security debt” and actually fixing it. For teams buried under technical debt, that’s where the value really shows.

[mvigenin]

It was very easy to configure GHAS for a whole organization with multiple repositories. The benefits are immediate. Report dashboards come out-of-the box. This is a great feature of Github.
I do face a problem with the digest reports though. The reports are automatically sent to organization admins only. Even if we setup users with "Security manager" role and configure the user's notifications to receive the digest, they never receive it. Does anyone know how to configure this?

[yaredTura]

Good

[yaredTura]

Yared Tura

[dostsamer-star]

[dostsamer-star]

دوست محمد نظری رئیس فدراسیون موترسایکل سواری ولایت بلخ ملی پوش افغانستان