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Best practices for preventing data leaks in your organization |
Learn guidance and recommendations to help you avoid private or sensitive data present in your organization from being exposed. |
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how_to |
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Prevent data leaks |
As an organization owner, preventing exposure of private or sensitive data should be a top priority. Whether intentional or accidental, data leaks can cause substantial risk to the parties involved. While {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %} takes measures to help protect you against data leaks, you are also responsible for administering your organization to harden security.
There are several key components when it comes to defending against data leaks:
- Taking a proactive approach towards prevention
- Early detection of possible leaks
- Maintaining a mitigation plan when an incident occurs
The best approach will depend on the type of organization you're managing. For example, an organization that focuses on open source development might require looser controls than a fully commercial organization, to allow for external collaboration. This article provide high level guidance on the {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %} features and settings to consider, which you should implement according to your needs.
Protect your organization's repositories and settings by implementing security best practices, including enabling 2FA and requiring it for all members, and establishing strong password guidelines.
{% ifversion ghec %}- Enabling secure authentication processes by using SAML and SCIM integrations, as well as 2FA authentication whenever possible. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE," "AUTOTITLE," and "AUTOTITLE." {% endif %}
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Requiring organization members, outside collaborators, and billing managers to enable 2FA for their personal accounts, making it harder for malicious actors to access an organization's repositories and settings.{% ifversion ghec %} This is one step further from enabling secure authentication.{% endif %} For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."
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Encouraging your users to create strong passwords and secure them appropriately, by following {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %}’s recommended password guidelines. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."{% ifversion secret-scanning-push-protection-for-users %}
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Encouraging your users to keep push protection for users enabled in their personal account settings, so that no matter which public repository they push to, they are protected. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."{% endif %}
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Establishing an internal security policy in {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %}, so users know the appropriate steps to take and who to contact if an incident is suspected. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."
For more detailed information about securing accounts, see "AUTOTITLE."
As an organization owner, you should limit and review access as appropriate for the type of your organization. Consider the following settings for tighter control:
| Recommendation | More information |
|---|---|
| Disable the ability to fork repositories. | "AUTOTITLE" |
| Disable changing repository visibility. | "AUTOTITLE" |
| Restrict repository creation to private or internal. | "AUTOTITLE" |
| Disable repository deletion and transfer. | "AUTOTITLE" |
| {% ifversion deploy-keys-enterprise-org-policy %} | |
| Disable the ability to use deploy keys. | "AUTOTITLE" |
| {% endif %} | |
| Scope {% data variables.product.pat_generic %}s to the minimum permissions necessary. | None |
| Secure your code by converting public repositories to private whenever appropriate. You can alert the repository owners of this change automatically using a {% data variables.product.prodname_github_app %}. | Prevent-Public-Repos in {% data variables.product.prodname_marketplace %} |
| Confirm your organization’s identity by verifying your domain and restricting email notifications to only verified email domains. | "AUTOTITLE{% ifversion ghec or ghes %}" and "AUTOTITLE{% endif %}"{% ifversion fpt or ghec %} |
| Ensure your organization has upgraded to the {% data variables.product.company_short %} Customer Agreement instead of using the Standard Terms of Service. | "AUTOTITLE"{% endif %} |
| Prevent contributors from making accidental commits. | "AUTOTITLE" |
No matter how well you tighten your organization to prevent data leaks, some may still occur, and you can respond by using {% data variables.product.prodname_secret_scanning %}, the audit log, and branch protection rules.
{% data variables.product.prodname_secret_scanning_caps %} helps secure code and keep secrets safe across organizations and repositories by scanning and detecting secrets that were accidentally committed over the full Git history of every branch in {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom %} repositories. Any strings that match patterns {% ifversion fpt or ghec %}provided by secret scanning partners, by other service providers, or {% endif %}defined by you or your organization, are reported as alerts in the Security tab of repositories.
{% ifversion fpt or ghec %} There are two forms of {% data variables.product.prodname_secret_scanning %} available: {% data variables.secret-scanning.partner_alerts_caps %} and {% data variables.secret-scanning.user_alerts_caps %}.
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{% data variables.secret-scanning.partner_alerts_caps %}: These are enabled by default and automatically run on all public repositories and public npm packages.
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{% data variables.secret-scanning.user_alerts_caps %}: To get additional scanning capabilities for your organization, you need to enable {% data variables.secret-scanning.user_alerts %}.
When enabled, {% data variables.secret-scanning.user_alerts %} can be detected on the following types of repository:{% ifversion fpt %}
- Public repositories owned by personal accounts on {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom_the_website %}
- Public repositories owned by organizations
- Private and internal repositories owned by organizations using {% data variables.product.prodname_ghe_cloud %}, when you have a license for {% data variables.product.prodname_GH_advanced_security %}{% elsif ghec %}
- Public repositories owned by organizations that use {% data variables.product.prodname_ghe_cloud %} (for free)
- Private and internal repositories when you have a license for {% data variables.product.prodname_GH_advanced_security %}{% endif %} {% endif %}
{% ifversion ghes %}Your site administrator must enable {% data variables.product.prodname_secret_scanning %} for your instance before you can use this feature. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."{% endif %}
For more information about {% data variables.product.prodname_secret_scanning %}, see "AUTOTITLE."
{% data reusables.secret-scanning.push-protection-high-level %} For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."{% ifversion ghec or ghes %} Finally, you can also extend the detection to include custom secret string structures. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."{% endif %}
You can also proactively secure IP and maintain compliance for your organization by leveraging your organization's audit log, along with the GraphQL Audit Log API. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE" and "AUTOTITLE."
To ensure that all code is properly reviewed prior to being merged into the default branch, you can enable branch protection. By setting branch protection rules, you can enforce certain workflows or requirements before a contributor can push changes. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE."
{% ifversion repo-rules %}
{% data reusables.repositories.rulesets-alternative %}
{% endif %}
If a user pushes sensitive data, ask them to remove it by using the git filter-repo tool or the BFG Repo-Cleaner open source tool. For more information, see "AUTOTITLE." Also, it is possible to revert almost anything in Git. For more information, see {% data variables.product.prodname_blog %}.
At the organization level, if you're unable to coordinate with the user who pushed the sensitive data to remove it, we recommend you contact {% data variables.contact.contact_support %} with the concerning commit SHA.
If you're unable to coordinate directly with the repository owner to remove data that you're confident you own, you can fill out a DMCA takedown notice form and tell GitHub Support. For more information, see DMCA takedown notice.
Note
If one of your repositories has been taken down due to a false claim, you should fill out a DMCA counter notice form and alert GitHub Support. For more information, see DMCA counter notice.