How exposed is your code? Find out in minutes—for free

Most development teams operate with a nagging suspicion: there are vulnerabilities in our codebase that we don't know about. The uncomfortable truth is that most code never gets a thorough security review. Vulnerabilities accumulate quietly in active repositories, across languages and teams, often undetected until something goes wrong.

GitHub is addressing this concern with their new Code Security Risk Assessment, a free tool that promises to reveal security issues hiding in plain sight. This one-click scan is designed specifically for GitHub organization admins and security managers, providing immediate visibility into potential security weaknesses without requiring any setup or commitment.

What Makes This Assessment Different

Unlike traditional security scanning tools that require configuration and ongoing maintenance, GitHub's approach is refreshingly simple. The Code Security Risk Assessment scans up to 20 of your most active repositories using CodeQL, GitHub's industry-leading static analysis engine, and delivers a dashboard that breaks down what it finds in several key areas:

• Total vulnerabilities across scanned repositories, categorized by severity (critical, high, medium, and low)
• Vulnerabilities by language, helping teams identify which parts of their codebase carry the most risk
• Specific security rules detected, showing the classes of issues found and how many repositories they affect
• Most vulnerable repositories, helping teams prioritize where to focus remediation efforts
• Copilot Autofix eligibility, indicating how many detected vulnerabilities could be automatically fixed using GitHub's AI-powered remediation tool

The Power of Immediate Visibility

The real value here is in the immediate, comprehensive view it provides. Many organizations struggle with security tool fatigue—implementing various scanners that produce overwhelming amounts of data without clear prioritization. GitHub's assessment cuts through the noise by focusing on what matters most: a clear picture of your current security posture.

This approach builds on the success of GitHub's existing Secret Risk Assessment, which has helped thousands of organizations understand their exposure to leaked credentials. In 2025 alone, customers using Secret Protection scanned nearly 2 billion pushes and blocked 19 million secret exposures. The Code Security Risk Assessment extends this same philosophy to vulnerabilities in source code.

From Detection to Remediation

Knowing where vulnerabilities exist is just the first step. The real value comes from fixing them efficiently. GitHub's integration with Copilot Autofix demonstrates how the company is thinking about the entire security lifecycle, not just detection.

The statistics are compelling:

• In 2025, 460,258 security alerts were fixed using Copilot Autofix
• 50% of vulnerability alerts were resolved directly in pull requests—where developers are already working
• Mean time to remediation was nearly twice as fast with Copilot Autofix (0.66 hours) compared to manual fixes (1.29 hours)

What's particularly interesting is how the assessment shows which vulnerabilities are eligible for Copilot Autofix, giving teams a concrete picture of how quickly they could start reducing risk. This connection between detection and remediation is crucial for building effective security programs.

Who Should Use This

The Code Security Risk Assessment is available to organization admins and security managers on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Team plans. The best part? It's completely free—you won't be charged for any licenses, and the GitHub Actions minutes used for scanning don't count against your quota.

This tool is valuable for several scenarios:

• Teams with no security scanning in place
• Organizations evaluating their current security tools
• Teams wanting a broader view of risk across their organization
• Anyone who wants to understand their security posture with minimal effort

The Bigger Picture

The introduction of the Code Security Risk Assessment represents GitHub's continued investment in making security more accessible to development teams. By integrating security scanning directly into the development workflow and providing actionable insights, GitHub is helping shift security from a compliance checkbox to an integral part of the development process.

The tool also fits into GitHub's broader security strategy, which includes Secret Protection for credential management and Code Security for vulnerability detection and remediation. Together, these tools provide a comprehensive view of an organization's security posture.

Getting Started

Running the assessment is straightforward. Simply navigate to the GitHub security dashboard and initiate the scan. The entire process takes just minutes, and the results are presented in an easy-to-understand dashboard that helps teams prioritize their security efforts.

For those who want to take action on the findings, the assessment provides a direct path to enable Code Security with a single click. This seamless transition from assessment to action is a key differentiator in the security tooling landscape.

Conclusion

The Code Security Risk Assessment addresses a fundamental challenge in software development: the gap between knowing we have security issues and actually finding them. By providing a free, easy-to-use scanning tool that integrates with the GitHub ecosystem, GitHub is lowering the barrier to entry for security scanning while providing clear paths to remediation.

In an industry where security vulnerabilities continue to proliferate, tools that make security more accessible and actionable are more important than ever. The Code Security Risk Assessment represents a significant step forward in making security scanning a routine part of the development process rather than a specialized, separate activity.

For organizations using GitHub, this tool offers a straightforward way to gain visibility into their security posture with minimal friction. And for the broader developer community, it reflects a growing recognition that security must be integrated into every stage of the development lifecycle.

To run your own free Code Security Risk Assessment, visit the GitHub security dashboard or check out the official documentation for more information.