Finding security vulnerabilities with CodeQL

@ammohant and @ds-ms

Moderated by: @ganeshrockz and @shigupt202

Prerequisites • Resources

CodeQL is GitHub's expressive language and engine for code analysis, which allows you to explore source code to find bugs and security vulnerabilities. During these beginner-friendly workshops, you will learn to write queries in CodeQL and find known security vulnerabilities in open-source C++.

📣 Prerequisites

• Install Visual Studio Code.
• Install the CodeQL extension for Visual Studio Code.
• You do not need to install the CodeQL CLI: the extension will handle this for you.
• Set up the CodeQL starter workspace.
  • Important: Don't forget to use git clone --recursive or git submodule update --init --remote to update the submodules when you clone this repository. This allows you to obtain the standard CodeQL query libraries.
  • Open the starter workspace in Visual Studio Code: File > Open Workspace > Browse to vscode-codeql-starter/vscode-codeql-starter.code-workspace in your checkout of the starter workspace.
• Download and add the CodeQL database to be used in the workshop:
  • Please download this CodeQL database.
  • Unzip the database.
  • Import the unzipped database into Visual Studio Code:
    • Click the CodeQL icon in the left sidebar.
    • Place your mouse over Databases, and click the + sign that appears on the right.
    • Choose the unzipped database directory on your filesystem.

📚 Resources

• Learning CodeQL
• Learning CodeQL for CPP
• Using the CodeQL extension for VS Code
• More about CodeQL on GitHub Security Lab
• CodeQL on GitHub Learning Lab