GitHub-Advanced-Security GitHub Advanced Security GHAS Exam Questions and Answers

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.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

When configuring Dependabot via the dependabot.yml file, the following fields are mandatory for each update configuration:

directory: Specifies the location of the package manifest within the repository. This tellsDependabot where to look for dependency files.​

package-ecosystem: Indicates the type of package manager (e.g., npm, pip, maven) used in the specified directory.​

schedule.interval: Defines how frequently Dependabot checks for updates (e.g., daily, weekly). This ensures regular scanning for outdated or vulnerable dependencies.​

The milestone field is optional and used for associating pull requests with milestones. The allow field is also optional and used to specify which dependencies to update.​

GitLab

You shoulddismissa code scanning alert if the flagged code isnot a true security concern, such as:

Code in test files

Code paths that are unreachable or safe by design

False positives from the scanner

Fixing the code would automaticallyresolvethe alert — not dismiss it. Dismissing is for valid exceptions or noise reduction.

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.​

Dependabot alerts utilize standardized identifiers to describe vulnerabilities:​

CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures):A widely recognized identifier for publicly known cybersecurity vulnerabilities.​

CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration):A category system for software weaknesses and vulnerabilities.​

These identifiers help developers understand the nature of the vulnerabilities and facilitate the search for more information or remediation strategies.​

When defining a custom pattern for secret scanning, two key fields are required:

Name of the pattern: A unique label to identify the pattern

Secret format: A regular expression that defines what the secret looks like (e.g., token format)

You can optionally specifyadditional match requirements(like required context keywords), but they’re not mandatory. Listing repositories is also not part of the required fields during pattern creation.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

When GitHub identifies a vulnerable dependency in a repository with Dependabot alerts enabled, it performs the following actions:​

Generates a Dependabot alert: The alert is displayed on the repository's Security tab, providing details about the vulnerability and affected dependency.​

Notifies repository maintainers: By default, GitHub notifies users with write, maintain, or admin permissions about new Dependabot alerts.​

GitHub Docs

These actions ensure that responsible parties are informed promptly to address the vulnerability.​

Using theCustomsetting allows you to subscribe to specific event types, such as Dependabot alerts or vulnerability notifications, without being overwhelmed by all repository activity. This is essential for repository maintainers who need fine-grained control over what kinds of events trigger notifications.

This setting is configurable per repository and allows users to stay aware of critical issues while minimizing notification noise.

By default,users with Write, Maintain, or Admin permissionswill receive notifications for newDependabot alerts. However,Write permissionis theminimum levelneeded to be automatically notified. Users with only Read access do not receive alerts unless added explicitly.

For compiled languages, CodeQL performs extraction bymonitoring the normal build process. This means it watches your usual build commands (like make, javac, or dotnet build) and extracts the relevant data from the actual build steps being executed. CodeQL uses this information to construct a semantic database of the application.

This approach ensures that CodeQL captures a precise, real-world representation of the code and its behavior as it is compiled, including platform-specific configurations or conditional logic used during build.

You can customize CodeQL scanning by including additionalquery packsor by specifying individualqueries:

Packs: These are reusable collections of CodeQL queries bundled into a single package.

Queries: You can point to specific files or directories containing .ql queries to include in the analysis.

github/codeql refers to a pack by name but is not a method or field. Scope is not a valid field used for configuration in this context.

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.

Bydefault,no repositoriesreceive Dependabot alerts unless configuration is explicitly enabled. GitHub doesnotenable Dependabot alerts automatically for any repositories unless:

The feature is turned on manually

It's configured at the organization or enterprise level via security policies

This includes public, private, and enterprise-owned repositories —manual activation is required.

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.

When dealing with a data flow issue in a code scanning alert, clicking on "Show paths" provides a detailed view of the data's journey through the code. This includes the source of the data, the path it takes, and where it ends up (the sink). This information is crucial for understanding how untrusted data might reach sensitive parts of your application and helps in identifying where to implement proper validation or sanitization.​

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

To receive Dependabot alert notifications for a repository, you can utilize the following Watch settings:

Custom setting: Allows you to tailor your notifications, enabling you to subscribe specifically to security alerts, including those from Dependabot.​

All Activity setting: Subscribes you to all notifications for the repository, encompassing issues, pull requests, and security alerts like those from Dependabot.​

The Participating and @mentions setting limits notifications to conversations you're directly involved in or mentioned, which may not include security alerts. The Ignore setting unsubscribes you from all notifications, including critical security alerts.​

GitHub Docs

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GitHub Docs

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Ifautobuildfails (which attempts to automatically detect how to build your project), you shoulddisable itin your workflow andreplace it with explicit build commands, using steps like run: make or run: ./gradlew build.

This ensures CodeQL can still extract and analyze the code correctly.

If a secret isintentionally used in a test environmentandposes no real-world security risk, you may close the alert with the reason"used in tests". This helps reduce noise and clarify that the alert was reviewed and accepted as non-critical.

Just being in a test file isn't enough unless itspurpose is purely for testing.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

To generate a dependency graph for a private repository, GitHub requires:​

Dependency graph enabled: The repository must have the dependency graph feature enabled. This can be configured at the organization level to apply to all new private repositories.​

Access to manifest and lock files: GitHub needs read-only access to the repository's dependency manifest and lock files (e.g., package.json, requirements.txt) to identify and map dependencies.​