Chapter 4: Windows Passwords on the Network

Few technologies have molded modern information security quite like the Windows password. The sheer popularity of the Windows operating system (OS) has resulted in intense scrutiny of its 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 backward compatibility. What this means in practice is that older and weaker methods are often found in today’s IT 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 at this anymore? The answer is, sadly, yes. Your clients will have their reasons for configuring their systems to support security...