System Account Manager

System Account Manager

(cryptography, operating system, security)(SAM) A passworddatabase stored as a registry file in Windows NT andWindows 2000.

The System Account Manager (SAM) database stores users'passwords in a hashed format. Since a hash function isone-way, this provides some measure of security for thestorage of the passwords. In an attempt to enhance thesecurity of the SAM database against offline cracking,Microsoft introduced the SYSKEY utility in Windows NT 4.0.