{"meta":{"title":"Monitoring alerts from secret scanning","intro":"You can configure how secret scanning notifies you about secret scanning alerts, and audit how your team responds to these alerts.","product":"Security and code quality","breadcrumbs":[{"href":"/en/code-security","title":"Security and code quality"},{"href":"/en/code-security/how-tos","title":"How-tos"},{"href":"/en/code-security/how-tos/manage-security-alerts","title":"Manage security alerts"},{"href":"/en/code-security/how-tos/manage-security-alerts/manage-secret-scanning-alerts","title":"Secret scanning alerts"},{"href":"/en/code-security/how-tos/manage-security-alerts/manage-secret-scanning-alerts/monitoring-alerts","title":"Monitor alerts"}],"documentType":"article"},"body":"# Monitoring alerts from secret scanning\n\nYou can configure how secret scanning notifies you about secret scanning alerts, and audit how your team responds to these alerts.\n\nWhen secret scanning detects a potential secret leak in your repository, staying informed about these alerts is crucial for maintaining your code's security. GitHub provides multiple notification channels to ensure you and your team are promptly alerted when secrets are found. You can customize how and when you receive these notifications based on your role and preferences.\n\nYou can also audit responses to secret scanning alerts to track how your team manages security issues and maintain compliance with your organization's security policies.\n\n## Configuring notifications for secret scanning alerts\n\nIn addition to displaying an alert in the ** Security and quality** tab of the repository, GitHub can also send email notifications for alerts. These notifications are different for incremental scans and historical scans.\n\n### Incremental scans\n\nWhen a new secret is detected, GitHub notifies all users with access to security alerts for the repository according to their notification preferences. These users include:\n\n* Repository administrators\n* Security managers\n* Users with custom roles with read/write access\n* Organization owners and enterprise owners, if they are administrators of repositories where secrets were leaked\n\n> \\[!NOTE]\n> Commit authors who've accidentally committed secrets will be notified, regardless of their notification preferences.\n\nYou will receive an email notification if:\n\n* You are watching the repository.\n* You have enabled notifications for \"All Activity\", or for custom \"Security alerts\" on the repository.\n* In your notification settings, under \"Subscriptions\", then under \"Watching\", you have selected to receive notifications by email.\n\nIn addition, you will receive a notification if someone assigns a code scanning or a secret scanning alert to you, see [Assigning alerts](/en/code-security/securing-your-organization/fixing-security-alerts-at-scale/about-security-campaigns#assigning-alerts).\n\n1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.\n\n2. To start watching the repository, select ** Watch**.\n\n \n\n3. In the dropdown menu, click **All Activity**. Alternatively, to only subscribe to security alerts, click **Custom**, then click **Security alerts**.\n\n4. Navigate to the notification settings for your personal account. These are available at [https://github.com/settings/notifications](https://github.com/settings/notifications?ref_product=secret-scanning\\&ref_type=engagement\\&ref_style=text).\n\n5. On your notification settings page, under \"Subscriptions\", then under \"Watching\", select the **Notify me** dropdown.\n\n6. Select \"Email\" as a notification option, then click **Save**.\n\n \n\nFor more information about setting up notification preferences, see [Managing security and analysis settings for your repository](/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/enabling-features-for-your-repository/managing-security-and-analysis-settings-for-your-repository#granting-access-to-security-alerts) and [Configuring your watch settings for an individual repository](/en/account-and-profile/managing-subscriptions-and-notifications-on-github/setting-up-notifications/configuring-notifications#configuring-your-watch-settings-for-an-individual-repository).\n\n### Historical scans\n\nFor historical scans, GitHub notifies the following users:\n\n* Organization owners, enterprise owners, and security managers—whenever a historical scan is complete, even if no secrets are found.\n* Repository administrators, security managers, and users with custom roles with read/write access—whenever a historical scan detects a secret, and according to their notification preferences.\n\nWe do *not* notify commit authors.\n\nFor more information about setting up notification preferences, see [Managing security and analysis settings for your repository](/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/enabling-features-for-your-repository/managing-security-and-analysis-settings-for-your-repository#granting-access-to-security-alerts) and [Configuring your watch settings for an individual repository](/en/account-and-profile/managing-subscriptions-and-notifications-on-github/setting-up-notifications/configuring-notifications#configuring-your-watch-settings-for-an-individual-repository).\n\n## Auditing responses to secret scanning alerts\n\nYou can audit the actions taken in response to secret scanning alerts using GitHub tools. For more information, see [Auditing security alerts](/en/code-security/getting-started/auditing-security-alerts)."}