< cryptography , operating system , security > (SAM) A password database stored as a registry file in Windows NT and Windows 2000 .
The System Account Manager (SAM) database stores users' passwords in a hashed format. Since a hash function is one-way, this provides some measure of security for the storage of the passwords. In an attempt to enhance the security of the SAM database against offline cracking , Microsoft introduced the SYSKEY utility in Windows NT 4.0.
(2000-07-19)