Because it is easy to extract strings from an application source code or binary, credentials should not be hard-coded. This is particularly true for applications that are distributed or that are open-source.


In the past, it has led to the following vulnerabilities:

* http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-13466[CVE-2019-13466]
* http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2018-15389[CVE-2018-15389]

Credentials should be stored outside of the code in a configuration file, a database, or a management service for secrets. 


This rule flags instances of hard-coded credentials used in database and LDAP connections. It looks for hard-coded credentials in connection strings, and for variable names that match any of the patterns from the provided list.


It's recommended to customize the configuration of this rule with additional credential words such as "oauthToken", "secret", ...
