Integrate Docker Hub

Secure your containerized applications by monitoring Docker Hub repositories for exposed secrets in container images, Dockerfiles, and environment configurations.

Why Monitor Docker Hub?

Docker Hub repositories contain container images that are distributed to production environments, customer systems, and third-party platforms. When developers build images with hardcoded API keys, database credentials, or private certificates embedded in layers, these secrets become accessible to anyone who pulls the image, creating widespread security vulnerabilities.

Capabilities

Feature	Support	Details
Historical Scanning	✅ (Supported)	Analyze existing images and their layers
Incremental Scanning	✅ (Supported)	Regular scheduled scanning for new content
Monitored Perimeter	✅ (Supported)	Granular monitoring of your repos
Team Perimeter	⏳ (Coming Soon)	Users must be in the "All-incidents" team to access incidents
Presence Check	❌ (Not Supported)	All occurrences considered present
Source Visibility	❌ (Not Supported)	All sources are considered as private
File Attachments	N/A	Not applicable for container registries

What we scan:

All container image layers
Dockerfiles and build configurations
Environment variables in image metadata

info

This integration automatically scans your monitored repositories, downloading Docker images which may incur bandwidth costs. To optimize costs while minimizing false positives, carefully select the sources to monitor and use our filepath exclusion feature.

info

Plan requirements: Available for GitGuardian Business and Enterprise plans. Try it for free with a 30-day trial - any detected incidents remain accessible after the trial ends.
Detector coverage: To minimize false positives, Generic High Entropy Secret and Generic Password are disabled. All other detectors are enabled.

Setup your Docker Hub integration

Prerequisites:

Owner or Manager account on your GitGuardian Dashboard
Docker Hub account with access to the repositories you want to monitor

GitGuardian integrates with Docker Hub via a Personal Access Token with read-only access to your repositories.

You can install GitGuardian on multiple Docker Hub instances to monitor your repositories.

Make sure you're logged as an administrator in your Docker Hub instance and that you selected the right namespace
Go to Account settings
Go to Personal access tokens
Click Generate new token
Type an Access token description (e.g.: GitGuardian)
Select Read-only as Access permissions
Click Generate
Copy the Personal access token
In the GitGuardian platform, navigate to the Sources integration page
Click Install next to Docker Hub in the Container registries section
Click Install on the Docker Hub integration page
Paste your Personal access token
Type your Username
Click Add
Customize your monitored perimeter:
- Monitor specific Docker Hub repositories (Recommended)
  - No repositories are monitored by default, you will have to select them manually.
  - Newly created repositories will not be monitored by default. You can adjust this setting at any time.
  - Recommended to optimize your bandwidth costs.
- Monitor the entire Docker Hub instance
  - All repositories are monitored by default with a full historical scan automatically triggered.
  - Newly created repositories will be monitored by default. You can adjust this setting at any time.

That's it! Your Docker Hub instance is now installed, and GitGuardian is monitoring all Docker images of your selected repositories for secrets.

Customize your monitored perimeter

To customize the monitored repositories, navigate to your Docker Hub settings.

Select/Unselect repositories to include or exclude them from monitoring
Confirm by clicking Update monitored perimeter

Automatic repository monitoring

You can enable or disable the automatic addition of newly created repositories to your monitored perimeter by switching the option in your Docker Hub settings. Docker Hub Automatic Repository Monitoring

Understanding scanning capabilities

Historical scanning

Uncover your secret debt: When you first integrate this source, GitGuardian performs a comprehensive scan of your entire content history, based on your customized perimeter. This reveals secrets that may have been exposed weeks, months, or even years ago - helping you address your existing security debt.

Incremental scanning

Stay protected with regular monitoring: Once integrated, GitGuardian provides ongoing protection through scheduled automated scans of your content. New and modified content is systematically monitored at regular intervals, ensuring comprehensive coverage and timely detection of any secret exposures. Your source remains under GitGuardian's protection, giving you confidence that secrets won't go unnoticed.

Managing your integration

Monitoring health and Maintenance

If you need to modify your integration settings or troubleshoot connectivity issues, access the management interface through Sources integration.

Uninstalling the integration

While our goal is to help you maintain comprehensive security coverage, you may uninstall the integration whenever necessary:

Navigate to Sources integration
Click Edit next to the integration name
Click Configure
Click the delete icon next to your resource
Confirm the removal

Note: Removing the integration preserves your incident history, but stops future scanning and presence checks for the integrations that support it.

Docker Hub uninstall

Excluded paths

GitGuardian automatically excludes files from scanning if their paths contain any of these regular expressions:

/__pypackages__/
/\.venv/
/\.tox/
/site-packages/
/venv/
distutils/command/register\.py
python.*/awscli/examples/
python.*/dulwich/(tests|contrib/test_)
python.*/hgext/bugzilla\.py
python.*/mercurial/util\.py
python.*/test/certdata/
python.*/urllib/request\.py
python.*/pygments/lexers/
/cryptography.+/tests/.+(fixtures|test)_.+\.py
/python.+pygpgme.+/tests/
botocore/data/.+/(examples|service)-.+\.json
usr(/local)?/lib/python.+/dist-packages
/libevent.+/info/test/test/
/conda-.+-py.+/info/test/tests.+/test_.+\.py
/python[^/]+/test/
/man/man5/kdc\.conf\.5
erlang.*(inets|ssl).*/examples/
/gems/.*httpclient.*/(test|sample)/
/gems/.*faraday.*/
/vendor/bundle/
/\.gem/
ruby-[^/]+/test/openssl/
/(g|G)o/src/cmd/go/internal/.*_test\.go
/(g|G)o/src/cmd/go/internal/.*/testdata/
/(g|G)o/src/cmd/go/testdata/
/(g|G)o/src/crypto/x509/platform_root_key\.pem
/(G|g)o/src/crypto/(tls|x509)/.*_test\.go
/(g|G)o/src/net/(url|http)/.*_test\.go
src/github.com/DataDog/datadog-agent/.*test.*\.go
google/internal/.*_test\.go
golang.org.*oauth2@.*/.*\.go
/flutter/.*/packages/flutter_tools/test/data/
/flutter/.*/examples/image_list/lib
/\.pub-cache
etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil\.key
perl.*Cwd\.pm
ansible/.*/tests/(integration|unit)/
ansible/.*/test/awx
ansible/collections/ansible_collections/.*/plugins/
/curl/.*/(tests|docs|lib/url\.c)
/doc/wget.+/NEWS
dist/awscli/examples/
usr(/local)?/lib/aws-cli/examples/
/google-cloud-sdk/(lib|platform)/
\.git/modules/third[-_]?party/
\.git/modules/external/
/\.npm/_cacache
/node_modules/
/\.parcel-cache/
/\.yarn/cache/
/\.m2/
/\.ivy2/cache/
/\.mix/
/\.hex/
/composer/cache/
/\.nuget/packages/
/libgpg-error/errorref\.txt
/Homebrew/Library/Taps/
/tcl[^/]+/http-.+\.tm
/tcl[^/]+/[^/]+/http-.+\.tm
usr/share/lua/[^/]+/posix/init\.lua
openssl/openssl-[^/]+/test/recipes/
usr/share/doc/libssl-doc/demos/
boringssl/src/third_party/[^/]+test[^/]+/[^/]+_test\.json

Additional Self-Hosted configuration

For GitGuardian Self-Hosted instances, scan frequency can be configured in the Admin Area:

Time interval unit: seconds
Default value: 86400 (1 day)
Minimum value: 1800 (30 minutes)

Privacy and compliance

Data handling

GitGuardian processes your data solely to detect exposed secrets:

Read-only access: We never require write access unless scoped to creating webhooks to receive and process real-time events
Minimal data retention: We store only data and metadata necessary for incident management
Encryption: All data in transit and at rest is encrypted
Compliance: We follow the same data protection standards as our other integrations

Regional considerations

GitGuardian hosts its services in two AWS regions: eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) and us-west-2 (Oregon). Ensure your GitGuardian deployment region aligns with your data residency requirements. Contact support if you need guidance on compliance with local regulations.

User notification

Country-specific laws and regulations may require you to inform your users that your repositories are being scanned for secrets. Here is a suggestion for a message you may want to use:

As part of our internal information security process, the company scans its repositories for potential secrets leaks using GitGuardian. All data collected will be processed for the purpose of detecting potential leaks. To find out more about how we manage your personal data and to exercise your rights, please refer to our employee/partner privacy notice.

Please note that only repositories relating to the company's activity and business may be monitored and that users shall refrain from sharing personal or sensitive data not relevant to the repository's purpose.