Security News > 2020 > May > GitHub blasts code-scanning tool into all open-source projects
The aim, said the code repo house, is to help developers suss out potential security vulnerabilities ahead of time, and to do so at a scale that will work for both small and large projects.
The feature, based on the code-checking tools GitHub bought last year when it gobbled up UK-based Semmle, automatically graphs and scans code when a new push request is made and checks it for a number of common errors that can cause security vulnerabilities.
GitHub senior product manager Justin Hutchings told The Register that a key component of the Semmle scanning was CodeQL, the query language that graphs and then checks code for mistakes.
While the feature itself will be new to GitHub, the underlying Semmle tools have been in use for years, which is why GitHub believes they'll hit the ground running when they launch for free with open-source projects and as an add-on for the paid, closed-source part of GitHub.
In addition to scanning for security bugs, GitHub is also adding the option for commercial developers to scan offline repositories and for exposed secrets that could lead to network breaches and data leaks if let out onto the public internet.