Last month GitHub launched its Dependency Graph feature that tracks a repository’s dependencies and sub-dependencies under the Insights tab. This week the company rolled out an expansion of the feature and will now identify known vulnerabilities and send notifications with suggested fixes from the GitHub community.
Dependency graphs and security alerts are automatically enabled for public repositories, provided the repository owner has defined the dependencies in one of the supported manifest file types, such as package.json or Gemfile. (Private repo owners have to opt in.) The vulnerability alerts are not public – they will only be shown to those who have been granted access to the vulnerability alerts.
GitHub uses data from the National Vulnerability Database to alert repository owners about publicly disclosed vulnerabilities that have CVE IDs. Vulnerability detection is currently limited to JavaScript and Ruby projects but Python support is next on the roadmap for 2018. PHP, which is a bet less widely used in projects on GitHub, is likely further down the list.