During a penetration test, the tester gains full access to the application's source code.

[References:, TruffleHog is widely recognized for its ability to uncover hidden secrets in code repositories, making it a valuable tool for penetration testers​​., Scan the live web application using Nikto (Option B):, Explanation: Nikto is a web server scanner that identifies vulnerabilities in web applications., Drawbacks: It is not designed to scan source code for hard-coded credentials. Instead, it focuses on web application vulnerabilities such as outdated software and misconfigurations., Perform a manual code review of the Git repository (Option C):, Explanation: Manually reviewing code can be thorough but is extremely time-consuming, especially with thousands of files., Drawbacks: Given the short timeline, this approach is impractical and inefficient for identifying hard-coded credentials quickly., Use SCA software to scan the application source code (Option D):, Explanation: Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools are used to analyze open source and third-party components within the code for vulnerabilities and license compliance., Drawbacks: While SCA tools are useful for dependency analysis, they are not specifically tailored for finding hard-coded credentials., Conclusion: Running TruffleHog against a local clone of the application is the most effective approach for quickly identifying hard-coded credentials in a large codebase within a limited timeframe., , , , ]