Windows Passwords on the Network

There are few technologies that have molded modern information security quite like the Windows password. The sheer popularity of the Windows operating system has resulted in intense scrutiny of the methods and their security; when more eyes are examining the security of an authentication system, there are more lessons to inform growth and improvement. On the other hand, a major goal of Windows implementations is backwards compatibility. What this means in practice is that older and weaker methods are often found in today's environments, even when a more secure version is available – and even when that more secure version is enabled in the same environment. In this chapter, we'll be discussing some technology that's literally more than two decades old, and you might wonder, do we really need to be looking for this anymore?...