Introduction

  • 2 minutes

GitHub Copilot provides powerful capabilities for identifying and resolving code security issues through its Ask and Agent modes. Instead of manually searching for vulnerabilities and writing fixes, developers can use GitHub Copilot's AI-assisted analysis to understand security problems and implement comprehensive solutions efficiently. This approach transforms the developer's role from intensive manual code inspection to guided analysis and AI-assisted remediation.

Imagine you're a developer responsible for maintaining an e-commerce application. Your security team identifies several critical vulnerabilities in the codebase. With GitHub Copilot, you can systematically analyze each security issue, understand its implications, explore remediation strategies, and implement fixes with confidence.

The topics covered in this module include:

  • Understanding GitHub Issues and their lifecycle from creation to resolution.
  • Exploring common code security vulnerabilities like SQL injection, weak encryption, and path traversal.
  • Using GitHub Copilot to prevent security issues during development.
  • Analyzing security issues with GitHub Copilot's Ask mode to understand vulnerabilities and plan fixes.
  • Remediating security issues with GitHub Copilot's Agent mode to implement comprehensive solutions.

After completing this module, you'll be able to:

  • Describe several common categories of code security vulnerabilities and the associated GitHub issues.
  • Describe the lifecycle of a GitHub issue from creation to resolution.
  • Use GitHub Copilot's Ask mode to analyze the code vulnerabilities associated with a GitHub issue and suggest potential fixes.
  • Use GitHub Copilot's Agent mode to fix code vulnerabilities and resolve GitHub issues.

Important

To complete this GitHub Copilot training, you must have an active subscription for GitHub Copilot in your personal GitHub account (includes the GitHub Copilot Free plan), or you must be assigned to a subscription managed by an organization or enterprise. Module activities might include GitHub Copilot suggestions that match public code. If you're a member of an organization on GitHub Enterprise Cloud who has been assigned a GitHub Copilot subscription through your organization, the setting for suggestions matching public code might be inherited from your organization or enterprise. If your account blocks suggestions that match public code, module activities might not work as expected.