talisman VS ggshield

It's been a while since I looked, but pre-commit hooks (like talisman) would be the only way to prevent secrets from being committed/pushed. Server-side hooks are generally not supported on hosted repos (e.g. github, azure devops) since it's basically arbitrary code execution from the host's perspective.

Isn't scanning for commits that contain secrets the better way? Best on server so secrets can't be pushed. Something like https://github.com/thoughtworks/talisman

https://thoughtworks.github.io/talisman/

You could just switch the existing repo(s?) to public. If secrets in the commits are a concern you can use stuff like GitGuardian (https://gitguardian.com)

For secrets scanning you can implement ggshield precommit hook. : https://github.com/GitGuardian/ggshield

I believe you'll get all the information you need on their website

The GitGuardian's CLI, ggshield, was recently updated to support IaC misconfigurations scanning: it's as easy as  ggshield iac scan path_to_iac_main_folder.

If you want to build a configuration from an example, you can find a sample config file at https://github.com/GitGuardian/ggshield/blob/main/.gitguardian.example.yml.

I agree that code scanning is really important, the best way to convince others is to identify high-risk threats in source code and present them to the decision-makers. For example, scanning Secrets is great for showing how repositories can be a massive vulnerability and identifying some low-hanging fruit, especially in the git history. Attackers are really after git repository access for this reason and there are plenty of open-source or free tools that you can use to illustrate the problem. Git-Secrets, Truffle Hog. These aren't great for a long-term commercial solution, something like GitGuardian is a better commercial tool but if the goal is just to illustrate the problem then finding some high-value secrets with free tools is a good way to convince the security personnel to invest in some solutions. Then the door is open to having more conversations as you have already proven the risk.

First up is the leaked TLS private key. Poor Corp added their wildcard certificate to their GitLab image, but they didn’t consider that anyone could steal the private key from the Docker image once published on Docker Hub. Rather than adding sensitive files and hardcoded environment variables to their containers while they were being built, Poor Corp should have used runtime environment variables and mounted volumes to pass secrets into the container—by the way, ggshield, the secrets detection CLI from GitGuardian, has a command for scanning Docker images. If you find that you’ve also made this mistake, you need to immediately revoke any certificates or credentials that were exposed.

GitGuardian’s CLI, ggshield, can be installed as a pre-commit hook on a developer’s workstation to act like a security seatbelt preventing any secret from being committed locally in the first place. If a developer chooses to bypass the guardrail and push a secret anyway, the event is reported in the GitGuardian dashboard. This allows security teams to have eyes on any possible policy issues as developers build—all without holding up their progress. These tools can detect risks, watch for vulnerabilities, and notify the right people in a non-intrusive way.