How Windows Store Passwords.pptVIP

Windows Operating Systems stores it’s passwords in a file called SAM(Security Accounts Manager). SAM is actually a Database stored as a registry file. It stores users passwords in a hashed format (in LM hash and NTLM hash). Since a hash function is one-way, this provides some measure of security for the storage of the passwords. Windows made an attempt to reduce the possibility of offline attempts by introducing SYSKEY. SYSKEY is a utility that encrypts the hashed password information in a SAM database using a 128-bit encryption key. SYSKEY was an optional feature added in Windows NT 4.0