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https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets

An enterprise friendly way of detecting and preventing secrets in code.
https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets

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An enterprise friendly way of detecting and preventing secrets in code.

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# detect-secrets



## About



`detect-secrets` is an aptly named module for (surprise, surprise) **detecting secrets** within a

code base.



However, unlike other similar packages that solely focus on finding secrets, this package is

designed with the enterprise client in mind: providing a **backwards compatible**, systematic

means of:



1. Preventing new secrets from entering the code base,

2. Detecting if such preventions are explicitly bypassed, and

3. Providing a checklist of secrets to roll, and migrate off to a more secure storage.



This way, you create a

[separation of concern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns):

accepting that there may *currently* be secrets hiding in your large repository

(this is what we refer to as a _baseline_), but preventing this issue from getting any larger,

without dealing with the potentially gargantuan effort of moving existing secrets away.



It does this by running periodic diff outputs against heuristically crafted regex statements,

to identify whether any *new* secret has been committed. This way, it avoids the overhead of

digging through all git history, as well as the need to scan the entire repository every time.



For a look at recent changes, please see [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md).



If you are looking to contribute, please see [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md).



For more detailed documentation, check out our other [documentation](docs/).



## Examples



### Quickstart:



Create a baseline of potential secrets currently found in your git repository.



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan > .secrets.baseline

```



or, to run it from a different directory:



```bash

$ detect-secrets -C /path/to/directory scan > /path/to/directory/.secrets.baseline

```



**Scanning non-git tracked files:**



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan test_data/ --all-files > .secrets.baseline

```



### Adding New Secrets to Baseline:



This will rescan your codebase, and:



1. Update/upgrade your baseline to be compatible with the latest version,

2. Add any new secrets it finds to your baseline,

3. Remove any secrets no longer in your codebase



This will also preserve any labelled secrets you have.



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --baseline .secrets.baseline

```



For baselines older than version 0.9, just recreate it.



### Alerting off newly added secrets:



**Scanning Staged Files Only:**



```bash

$ git diff --staged --name-only -z | xargs -0 detect-secrets-hook --baseline .secrets.baseline

```



**Scanning All Tracked Files:**



```bash

$ git ls-files -z | xargs -0 detect-secrets-hook --baseline .secrets.baseline

```



### Viewing All Enabled Plugins:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --list-all-plugins

ArtifactoryDetector

AWSKeyDetector

AzureStorageKeyDetector

BasicAuthDetector

CloudantDetector

DiscordBotTokenDetector

GitHubTokenDetector

GitLabTokenDetector

Base64HighEntropyString

HexHighEntropyString

IbmCloudIamDetector

IbmCosHmacDetector

IPPublicDetector

JwtTokenDetector

KeywordDetector

MailchimpDetector

NpmDetector

OpenAIDetector

PrivateKeyDetector

PypiTokenDetector

SendGridDetector

SlackDetector

SoftlayerDetector

SquareOAuthDetector

StripeDetector

TelegramBotTokenDetector

TwilioKeyDetector

```



### Disabling Plugins:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --disable-plugin KeywordDetector --disable-plugin AWSKeyDetector

```



If you want to **only** run a specific plugin, you can do:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --list-all-plugins | \

    grep -v 'BasicAuthDetector' | \

    sed "s#^#--disable-plugin #g" | \

    xargs detect-secrets scan test_data

```



### Auditing a Baseline:



This is an optional step to label the results in your baseline. It can be used to narrow down your

checklist of secrets to migrate, or to better configure your plugins to improve its signal-to-noise

ratio.



```bash

$ detect-secrets audit .secrets.baseline

```



### Usage in Other Python Scripts



**Basic Use:**



```python

from detect_secrets import SecretsCollection

from detect_secrets.settings import default_settings



secrets = SecretsCollection()

with default_settings():

    secrets.scan_file('test_data/config.ini')



import json

print(json.dumps(secrets.json(), indent=2))

```



**More Advanced Configuration:**



```python

from detect_secrets import SecretsCollection

from detect_secrets.settings import transient_settings



secrets = SecretsCollection()

with transient_settings({

    # Only run scans with only these plugins.

    # This format is the same as the one that is saved in the generated baseline.

    'plugins_used': [

        # Example of configuring a built-in plugin

        {

            'name': 'Base64HighEntropyString',

            'limit': 5.0,

        },



        # Example of using a custom plugin

        {

            'name': 'HippoDetector',

            'path': 'file:///Users/aaronloo/Documents/github/detect-secrets/testing/plugins.py',

        },

    ],



    # We can also specify whichever additional filters we want.

    # This is an example of using the function `is_identified_by_ML_model` within the

    # local file `./private-filters/example.py`.

    'filters_used': [

        {

            'path': 'file://private-filters/example.py::is_identified_by_ML_model',

        },

    ]

}) as settings:

    # If we want to make any further adjustments to the created settings object (e.g.

    # disabling default filters), we can do so as such.

    settings.disable_filters(

        'detect_secrets.filters.heuristic.is_prefixed_with_dollar_sign',

        'detect_secrets.filters.heuristic.is_likely_id_string',

    )



    secrets.scan_file('test_data/config.ini')

```



## Installation



```bash

$ pip install detect-secrets

✨🍰✨

```



Install via [brew](https://brew.sh/):



```bash

$ brew install detect-secrets

```



## Usage



`detect-secrets` comes with three different tools, and there is often confusion around which one

to use. Use this handy checklist to help you decide:



1. Do you want to add secrets to your baseline? If so, use **`detect-secrets scan`**.

2. Do you want to alert off new secrets not in the baseline? If so, use **`detect-secrets-hook`**.

3. Are you analyzing the baseline itself? If so, use **`detect-secrets audit`**.



### Adding Secrets to Baseline



```

$ detect-secrets scan --help

usage: detect-secrets scan [-h] [--string [STRING]] [--only-allowlisted]

                           [--all-files] [--baseline FILENAME]

                           [--force-use-all-plugins] [--slim]

                           [--list-all-plugins] [-p PLUGIN]

                           [--base64-limit [BASE64_LIMIT]]

                           [--hex-limit [HEX_LIMIT]]

                           [--disable-plugin DISABLE_PLUGIN]

                           [-n | --only-verified]

                           [--exclude-lines EXCLUDE_LINES]

                           [--exclude-files EXCLUDE_FILES]

                           [--exclude-secrets EXCLUDE_SECRETS]

                           [--word-list WORD_LIST_FILE] [-f FILTER]

                           [--disable-filter DISABLE_FILTER]

                           [path [path ...]]



Scans a repository for secrets in code. The generated output is compatible

with `detect-secrets-hook --baseline`.



positional arguments:

  path                  Scans the entire codebase and outputs a snapshot of

                        currently identified secrets.



optional arguments:

  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

  --string [STRING]     Scans an individual string, and displays configured

                        plugins' verdict.

  --only-allowlisted    Only scans the lines that are flagged with `allowlist

                        secret`. This helps verify that individual exceptions

                        are indeed non-secrets.



scan options:

  --all-files           Scan all files recursively (as compared to only

                        scanning git tracked files).

  --baseline FILENAME   If provided, will update existing baseline by

                        importing settings from it.

  --force-use-all-plugins

                        If a baseline is provided, detect-secrets will default

                        to loading the plugins specified by that baseline.

                        However, this may also mean it doesn't perform the

                        scan with the latest plugins. If this flag is

                        provided, it will always use the latest plugins

  --slim                Slim baselines are created with the intention of

                        minimizing differences between commits. However, they

                        are not compatible with the `audit` functionality, and

                        slim baselines will need to be remade to be audited.



plugin options:

  Configure settings for each secret scanning ruleset. By default, all

  plugins are enabled unless explicitly disabled.



  --list-all-plugins    Lists all plugins that will be used for the scan.

  -p PLUGIN, --plugin PLUGIN

                        Specify path to custom secret detector plugin.

  --base64-limit [BASE64_LIMIT]

                        Sets the entropy limit for high entropy strings. Value

                        must be between 0.0 and 8.0, defaults to 4.5.

  --hex-limit [HEX_LIMIT]

                        Sets the entropy limit for high entropy strings. Value

                        must be between 0.0 and 8.0, defaults to 3.0.

  --disable-plugin DISABLE_PLUGIN

                        Plugin class names to disable. e.g.

                        Base64HighEntropyString



filter options:

  Configure settings for filtering out secrets after they are flagged by the

  engine.



  -n, --no-verify       Disables additional verification of secrets via

                        network call.

  --only-verified       Only flags secrets that can be verified.

  --exclude-lines EXCLUDE_LINES

                        If lines match this regex, it will be ignored.

  --exclude-files EXCLUDE_FILES

                        If filenames match this regex, it will be ignored.

  --exclude-secrets EXCLUDE_SECRETS

                        If secrets match this regex, it will be ignored.

  --word-list WORD_LIST_FILE

                        Text file with a list of words, if a secret contains a

                        word in the list we ignore it.

  -f FILTER, --filter FILTER

                        Specify path to custom filter. May be a python module

                        path (e.g.

                        detect_secrets.filters.common.is_invalid_file) or a

                        local file path (e.g.

                        file://path/to/file.py::function_name).

  --disable-filter DISABLE_FILTER

                        Specify filter to disable. e.g.

                        detect_secrets.filters.common.is_invalid_file

```



### Blocking Secrets not in Baseline



```

$ detect-secrets-hook --help

usage: detect-secrets-hook [-h] [-v] [--version] [--baseline FILENAME]

                           [--list-all-plugins] [-p PLUGIN]

                           [--base64-limit [BASE64_LIMIT]]

                           [--hex-limit [HEX_LIMIT]]

                           [--disable-plugin DISABLE_PLUGIN]

                           [-n | --only-verified]

                           [--exclude-lines EXCLUDE_LINES]

                           [--exclude-files EXCLUDE_FILES]

                           [--exclude-secrets EXCLUDE_SECRETS]

                           [--word-list WORD_LIST_FILE] [-f FILTER]

                           [--disable-filter DISABLE_FILTER]

                           [filenames [filenames ...]]



positional arguments:

  filenames             Filenames to check.



optional arguments:

  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

  -v, --verbose         Verbose mode.

  --version             Display version information.

  --json                Print detect-secrets-hook output as JSON

  --baseline FILENAME   Explicitly ignore secrets through a baseline generated

                        by `detect-secrets scan`



plugin options:

  Configure settings for each secret scanning ruleset. By default, all

  plugins are enabled unless explicitly disabled.



  --list-all-plugins    Lists all plugins that will be used for the scan.

  -p PLUGIN, --plugin PLUGIN

                        Specify path to custom secret detector plugin.

  --base64-limit [BASE64_LIMIT]

                        Sets the entropy limit for high entropy strings. Value

                        must be between 0.0 and 8.0, defaults to 4.5.

  --hex-limit [HEX_LIMIT]

                        Sets the entropy limit for high entropy strings. Value

                        must be between 0.0 and 8.0, defaults to 3.0.

  --disable-plugin DISABLE_PLUGIN

                        Plugin class names to disable. e.g.

                        Base64HighEntropyString



filter options:

  Configure settings for filtering out secrets after they are flagged by the

  engine.



  -n, --no-verify       Disables additional verification of secrets via

                        network call.

  --only-verified       Only flags secrets that can be verified.

  --exclude-lines EXCLUDE_LINES

                        If lines match this regex, it will be ignored.

  --exclude-files EXCLUDE_FILES

                        If filenames match this regex, it will be ignored.

  --exclude-secrets EXCLUDE_SECRETS

                        If secrets match this regex, it will be ignored.

  -f FILTER, --filter FILTER

                        Specify path to custom filter. May be a python module

                        path (e.g.

                        detect_secrets.filters.common.is_invalid_file) or a

                        local file path (e.g.

                        file://path/to/file.py::function_name).

  --disable-filter DISABLE_FILTER

                        Specify filter to disable. e.g.

                        detect_secrets.filters.common.is_invalid_file

```



We recommend setting this up as a pre-commit hook. One way to do this is by using the

[pre-commit](https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit) framework:



```yaml

# .pre-commit-config.yaml

repos:

-   repo: https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets

    rev: v1.5.0

    hooks:

    -   id: detect-secrets

        args: ['--baseline', '.secrets.baseline']

        exclude: package.lock.json

```



#### Inline Allowlisting



There are times when we want to exclude a false positive from blocking a commit, without creating

a baseline to do so. You can do so by adding a comment as such:



```python

secret = "hunter2"      # pragma: allowlist secret

```



or



```javascript

//  pragma: allowlist nextline secret

const secret = "hunter2";

```



### Auditing Secrets in Baseline



```bash

$ detect-secrets audit --help

usage: detect-secrets audit [-h] [--diff] [--stats]

                      [--report] [--only-real | --only-false]

                      [--json]

                      filename [filename ...]



Auditing a baseline allows analysts to label results, and optimize plugins for

the highest signal-to-noise ratio for their environment.



positional arguments:

  filename      Audit a given baseline file to distinguish the difference

                between false and true positives.



optional arguments:

  -h, --help    show this help message and exit

  --diff        Allows the comparison of two baseline files, in order to

                effectively distinguish the difference between various plugin

                configurations.

  --stats       Displays the results of an interactive auditing session which

                have been saved to a baseline file.

  --report      Displays a report with the secrets detected



reporting:

  Display a summary with all the findings and the made decisions. To be used with the report mode (--report).



  --only-real   Only includes real secrets in the report

  --only-false  Only includes false positives in the report



analytics:

  Quantify the success of your plugins based on the labelled results in your

  baseline. To be used with the statistics mode (--stats).



  --json        Outputs results in a machine-readable format.

```



## Configuration



This tool operates through a system of **plugins** and **filters**.



- **Plugins** find secrets in code

- **Filters** ignore false positives to increase scanning precision



You can adjust both to suit your precision/recall needs.



### Plugins



There are three different strategies we employ to try and find secrets in code:



1. Regex-based Rules



   These are the most common type of plugin, and work well with well-structured secrets.

   These secrets can optionally be [verified](docs/plugins.md#Verified-Secrets), which increases

   scanning precision. However, solely depending on these may negatively affect the recall of your

   scan.



2. Entropy Detector



   This searches for "secret-looking" strings through a variety of heuristic approaches. This

   is great for non-structured secrets, but may require tuning to adjust the scanning precision.



3. Keyword Detector



   This ignores the secret value, and searches for variable names that are often associated with

   assigning secrets with hard-coded values. This is great for "non-secret-looking" strings (e.g.

   le3tc0de passwords), but may require tuning filters to adjust the scanning precision.



Want to find a secret that we don't currently catch? You can also (easily) develop your own

plugin, and use it with the engine! For more information, check out the

[plugin documentation](docs/plugins.md#Using-Your-Own-Plugin).



### Filters



`detect-secrets` comes with several different in-built filters that may suit your needs.



#### --exclude-lines



Sometimes, you want to be able to globally allow certain lines in your scan, if they match a

specific pattern. You can specify a regex rule as such:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --exclude-lines 'password = (blah|fake)'

```



Or you can specify multiple regex rules as such:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --exclude-lines 'password = blah' --exclude-lines 'password = fake'

```



#### --exclude-files



Sometimes, you want to be able to ignore certain files in your scan. You can specify a regex

pattern to do so, and if the filename meets this regex pattern, it will not be scanned:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --exclude-files '.*\.signature$'

```



Or you can specify multiple regex patterns as such:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --exclude-files '.*\.signature$' --exclude-files '.*/i18n/.*'

```



#### --exclude-secrets



Sometimes, you want to be able to ignore certain secret values in your scan. You can specify

a regex rule as such:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --exclude-secrets '(fakesecret|\${.*})'

```



Or you can specify multiple regex rules as such:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --exclude-secrets 'fakesecret' --exclude-secrets '\${.*})'

```



#### Inline Allowlisting



Sometimes, you want to apply an exclusion to a specific line, rather than globally excluding it.

You can do so with inline allowlisting as such:



```python

API_KEY = 'this-will-ordinarily-be-detected-by-a-plugin'    # pragma: allowlist secret

```



These comments are supported in multiple languages. e.g.



```java

const GoogleCredentialPassword = "something-secret-here";     //  pragma: allowlist secret

```



You can also use:



```python

# pragma: allowlist nextline secret

API_KEY = 'WillAlsoBeIgnored'

```



This may be a convenient way for you to ignore secrets, without needing to regenerate the entire

baseline again. If you need to explicitly search for these allowlisted secrets, you can also do:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --only-allowlisted

```



Want to write more custom logic to filter out false positives? Check out how to do this in

our [filters documentation](docs/filters.md#Using-Your-Own-Filters).



## Extensions



### wordlist



The `--exclude-secrets` flag allows you to specify regex rules to exclude secret values. However,

if you want to specify a large list of words instead, you can use the `--word-list` flag.



To use this feature, be sure to install the `pyahocorasick` package, or simply use:



```bash

$ pip install detect-secrets[word_list]

```



Then, you can use it as such:



```bash

$ cat wordlist.txt

not-a-real-secret

$ cat sample.ini

password = not-a-real-secret



# Will show results

$ detect-secrets scan sample.ini



# No results found

$ detect-secrets scan --word-list wordlist.txt

```



### Gibberish Detector



The Gibberish Detector is a simple ML model, that attempts to determine whether a secret value

is actually gibberish, with the assumption that **real** secret values are not word-like.



To use this feature, be sure to install the `gibberish-detector` package, or use:



```bash

$ pip install detect-secrets[gibberish]

```



Check out the [gibberish-detector](https://github.com/domanchi/gibberish-detector) package for

more information on how to train the model. A pre-trained model (seeded by processing RFCs) will

be included for easy use.



You can also specify your own model as such:



```bash

$ detect-secrets scan --gibberish-model custom.model

```



This is not a default plugin, given that this will ignore secrets such as `password`.



## Caveats



This is not meant to be a sure-fire solution to prevent secrets from entering the codebase. Only

proper developer education can truly do that. This pre-commit hook merely implements several

heuristics to try and prevent obvious cases of committing secrets.



**Things That Won't Be Prevented:**



- Multi-line secrets

- Default passwords that don't trigger the `KeywordDetector` (e.g. `login = "hunter2"`)



## FAQ



### General



- **"Did not detect git repository." warning encountered, even though I'm in a git repo.**



  Check to see whether your `git` version is >= 1.8.5. If not, please upgrade it then try again.

  [More details here](https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets/issues/220).



### Windows



- **`detect-secrets audit` displays "Not a valid baseline file!" after creating baseline.**



  Ensure the file encoding of your baseline file is UTF-8.

  [More details here](https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets/issues/272#issuecomment-619187136).