What is a plain text password and why can it be decypted?

Posted by Misha on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Misha
Published on 2012-11-06T03:08:57Z Indexed on 2012/11/06 5:06 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 486

Filed under:

windows-8

|

passwords

I was trying to understand the level of security offered by Windows picture passwords and ran across this claim on this website.

Some of our password recovery utilities already implement Windows 8 plain-text password decryption. The upcoming release of Windows Password Recovery is expected to have a full-fledged Vault analyzer and offline decoder.

I'm trying to understand what a plain text password is and if it is the default kind of password when I add a password to my account. My head is a bit muddled on this one so any clarification can help.

It seems there are passwords that can be decrypted and those that can't. What can be decrypted? Is the password I enter in Windows exposed?

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about windows-8

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about passwords

Fixing /etc/shadow with md5 passwords to sha512 passwords

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I recently upgraded an ubuntu server with many users to a recent version from a version from 2008. The server used to use md5 password hashes (e.g., the shadow passwords began with $1$) and now is configured to use sha512. I'd prefer to keep using sha512, but would like the old users to be able… >>> More
How to securely generate memorable passwords?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Whenever I need new passwords I use some tools to generate those, preferable memorable passwords, but I've been wondering how secure this might actually be. Using The xkcd random number generator is probably pretty bad, cat /dev/random is probably pretty good, but generating memorable passwords seems… >>> More
Gawker Passwords

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
There has been much news about the hack of the Gawker web sites. There has even been an analysis of the common passwords found. This list is embarrassing in many ways. The most common password was "123456". The second most common password was "password". Much has also been written providing… >>> More
Phishing Ploy Forces Twitter to Reset Passwords

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
The microblogging site has reset some Twitter users' passwords after a phishing attack attempted to steal their login information. >>> More
Phishing Ploy Forces Twitter to Reset Passwords

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
The microblogging site has reset some Twitter users' passwords after a phishing attack attempted to steal their login information. >>> More