The product transmits or stores authentication credentials, but it uses an insecure method that is susceptible to unauthorized interception and/or retrieval.
Use an appropriate security mechanism to protect the credentials.
Make appropriate use of cryptography to protect the credentials.
Use industry standards to protect the credentials (e.g. LDAP, keystore, etc.).
An attacker could gain access to user accounts and access sensitive data used by the user accounts.
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
Effectiveness: High