🚨 NEVER clone a random GitHub repo without a scan first. We have even more reason now to place greater emphasis on this than we did before. It could hide malware, cryptominers, or secret-stealing scripts. Here’s your Pre-Clone GitHub Threat Recon Playbook🧵👇

Step 1 — Recon in the browser 📌Check the Security tab (Advisories, Code Scans) 📌 View Dependency Graph for vulnerable packages 📌 Review commits for obfuscated or suspicious code No downloads. No risk.

Step 2 — Add extra eyes Install browser helpers: 🔸Octotree → File tree view 🔸 Refined GitHub → Cleaner UI & extra info Helps manual inspection before touching the code.

Step 3 — Online scanners These scan repos by URL — no local execution: 🔹 socket.dev -> socket.dev Package + repo risk score 🔹 snyk.io -> snyk.io) Dependency vulnerabilities Some require account link for deep scans

Step 4 — CLI intel (No clone) # Repo metadata gh repo view owner/repo --json createdAt,updatedAt,stargazerCount,forkCount # Remote refs git ls-remote github.com/owner/repo.git # API details curl -s api.github.com/repos/owner/re…

Step 5 — Remote scanning tools Many can scan without full clone: 🔸GitLeaks → Secrets in history 🔸TruffleHog → API keys & creds 🔸Semgrep → Static analysis 🔸OSSF Scorecard → Overall repo security score

Step 6 — Manual red flag check Watch for: 📉Recently created, low-activity accounts ⚠️Strange binary files ⛔️Obfuscated JS/Python (although not always, sometimes it’s for property protection) ‼️Generic commit messages (“update”, “fix”) not always a threat