Unlocking the Power of GitHub Actions for Streamlined Governance

Effectively ensuring governance within an organization's source code today is crucial for addressing security concerns and issues. Differing criticality, data classifications, and risk tolerance levels for applications within an organization's portfolio necessitate a flexible approach toward managing risk and vulnerabilities across their source code management platform, so security tools must be built with the ability to support varying risk levels. With tools like GitHub Actions, organizations can create custom strategies that cater to the unique needs of each project and promote a culture of shifting security left. Readily available actions within the GitHub community can streamline the CI/CD pipeline process, empowering security and development teams to work together. This can include automating governance, security, and compliance into the early stages of the software development lifecycle and enabling continuous improvement and greater transparency.

Security teams can employ 'soft' controls that help developers by guiding their behavior and decision-making in the direction of risk management for effective governance through ‘paved roads’, or they can also deploy 'hard' controls that align with measurable requirements for the organization, like preventing critical vulnerabilities identified from security scans from being merged and introduced into a production application. These 'soft' and 'hard' controls can also be configured to work for specific repositories and branches as part of CI/CD processes to meet security and development teams' objectives. While the risk appetite for an organization may allow leeway for an internal-facing application that isn't critical to the business, more stringent requirements may be required for other applications that directly contribute to the business's operations. The ability to introduce flexibility into these controls supports the idea of 'shift-left' for the application team. Developers are made aware of vulnerabilities and issues and empowered to fix the findings earlier in the development process. These guardrails on the pipeline can finally give the security team peace of mind, knowing that critical issues will not be introduced to production without their explicit approval.

Incorporating principles of simplicity and clarity into the governance strategy, especially through the use of platforms like GitHub, further accentuates the effectiveness of such an approach. By actively involving all relevant stakeholders in the governance process, from platform administrators to repository owners, a more inclusive, comprehensive, and understandable security strategy is cultivated. This ensures that a culture where security is integrated seamlessly into the development lifecycle is not just promoted but becomes the norm.

Additionally, the application of practical risk assessment and mitigation strategies within the GitHub environment enables organizations to proactively identify vulnerabilities and address them before they escalate. Leveraging GitHub Actions for automated security checks and compliance validation allows for the implementation of governance controls that are both effective and adaptable, reinforcing the overarching governance framework with a strategic and informed approach.

As GitHub Actions supports open-source contributions shared by the broader development community, organizations, and individual contributors, many commonly used functions are readily available without the need for custom development. This accessibility helps security teams reduce the time and effort needed to create customized pipelines that fit their organizations’ specific needs. Moreover, application teams can draw inspiration from capabilities they have yet to implement by reviewing highly rated actions and understanding what their peers commonly use. GitHub also maintains a set of curated GitHub Actions in the marketplace for GitHub Enterprise users to enhance the functionality of their products, adding another layer of support for organizations striving to improve their application security posture.

The ever-evolving technological landscape necessitates effective governance and risk management within an organization's source code. By implementing tools like GitHub Actions and leveraging the vast resources within the GitHub community, alongside a governance strategy that emphasizes simplicity, inclusivity, and proactive risk management, organizations can create custom strategies tailored to their unique needs.

*Special thanks to Kin Tsang, Senior Associate, Cybersecurity Services, KPMG LLP for his supporting contributions