GitHub-Advanced-Security Practice Exam Questions with Answers GitHub Advanced Security GHAS Exam Certification

Youmust enable secret scanningbefore defining custom patterns. Secret scanning provides the foundational capability for detecting exposed credentials, and custom patterns build upon that by allowing organizations to specify their own regex-based patterns for secrets unique to their environment.

Without enabling secret scanning, GitHub will not process or apply custom patterns.

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.

Query suite definitions in CodeQL are stored using the .qls file extension. A query suite defines a collection of queries to be run during an analysis and allows for grouping them based on categories like language, security relevance, or custom filters.

In contrast:

.ql files are individual queries.

.qll files are libraries used by .ql queries.

.yml is used for workflows, not query suites.

ADependabot alertis only marked asresolvedwhen the related vulnerability is no longer present in your code — specifically after youmerge a pull requestthat updates the vulnerable dependency.

Simply viewing alerts or graphs doesnotaffect their status. Ignoring the alert by leaving the repo unchanged keeps the vulnerability active and unresolved.

All results from CodeQL analysis appear under therepository’s code scanning alertstab. This section is part of theSecuritytab and provides a list of all current, fixed, and dismissed alerts found by CodeQL.

A CodeQL database is used internally during scanning but does not display results. Query packs contain rules, not results. Security advisories are for published vulnerabilities, not per-repo findings.

Thedependency graphin a repository is built byparsing manifest and lock files(like package.json, pom.xml, requirements.txt). It helps GitHub detect dependencies and cross-reference them with known vulnerability databases for alerting.

It is specific to each repository and does not show org-wide or cross-repo summaries.

Requesting a CVE ID for a security advisory in a GitHub repository requiresAdminpermissions. This level of access is necessary because it involves managing sensitive security information and coordinating with external entities to assign a CVE, which is a formal process that can impact the public perception and security posture of the project.?

To proactively address secret scanning:

Webhookscan be configured to listen for secret scanning events. This allows automation, logging, or alerting in real-time when secrets are detected.

Documenting secure development practices(like using environment variables or secret managers) helps reduce the likelihood of developers committing secrets in the first place.

Dismissal based on age is not a best practice without triage. SCIM deals with user provisioning, not scanning alerts.

If an alert is raised on apull request dependency, best practice is toupdate the dependencyto a secure versionbeforemerging the PR. This prevents the vulnerable version from entering the main codebase.

Merging or deploying the PR without fixing the issue exposes your production environment to known risks.

GitHub automatically closes a code scanning alert when the vulnerable code is fixedin the same branch where the alert was generated, usually via acommit inside a pull request. Simply clicking or triaging an alert does not resolve it. The alert is re-evaluated after each push to the branch, and if the issue no longer exists, it is marked as resolved.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

In the advanced setup for CodeQL code scanning, GitHub generates a workflow file named codeql-analysis.yml. This file is located in the .github/workflows directory of your repository. It defines the configuration for the CodeQL analysis, including the languages to analyze, the events that trigger the analysis, and the steps to perform during the workflow.?

When apublic repositorycontains credentials that match known secret formats, GitHub willautomatically notify the service providerthat issued the secret. This process is known as"secret scanning partner notification". The provider may then revoke the secret or contact the userdirectly.

GitHub doesnotpublicly display the alert and does not send internal repository notifications for public detections.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

In private repositories, users with write access can fix code scanning alerts. They can do this by committing changes that address the issues identified by the code scanning tools. This level of access ensures that only trusted contributors can modify the code to resolve potential security vulnerabilities.?

GitHub Docs

Users with read or triage roles do not have the necessary permissions to make code changes, and the security manager role is primarily focused on managing security settings rather than directly modifying code.?

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.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

For code scanning to be triggered on a specific branch, the branch must contain the appropriate workflow file, typically located in the .github/workflows directory. This YAML file defines the code scanning configuration and specifies the events that trigger the scan (e.g., push, pull_request).?

Without the workflow file in the branch, GitHub Actions will not execute the code scanning process for that branch. The repository's visibility (private or public), the status of secret scanning, or the activity level of developers do not directly influence the triggering of code scanning.?

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.

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.