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Proactive Password Auditor™ (PPA™; former Proactive Windows Securiy Explorer) is a password security test tool that's designed to allow Windows® NT, Windows® 2000, Windows® XP and Windows Server 2003-based systems administrators to identify and close security holes in their networks.
Password hacking is one of the most critical and commonly exploited network security threats. Too often, users like to use simple and easy-to-remember passwords such as repeating characters, simple words, and names. In addition, some network administrators forget to purge terminated employees from the system, force people to change passwords often, or lock out users after a number of failed attempts.
Proactive Password Auditor™ helps secure networks by executing an audit of account passwords, and exposing insecure account passwords. If it is possible to recover the password within a reasonable time, the password is considered insecure.
An administrator can also use it to recover any lost password and access a user's Windows® account. Proactive Password Auditor™ works by analyzing user password hashes and recovering plain-text passwords.
The software supports a few different methods of obtaining password hashes for further attack/audit: from dump files (generated by 3rd party tools like pwdump/pwdump2/pwdump3), Registry of local computer, binary Registry files (SAM and SYSTEM), memory of local computer, and memory of remote computers (Domain Controllers), including ones running Active Directory. It can use brute-force and dictionary attacks on LM and NTLM password hashes, effectively optimized for speed.
The product also features a so-called "rainbow" attack, that uses pre-computed hash tables that allow to find most passwords in minutes instead of days or weeks.
Version 1.60 is a major upgrade. On LM hashes, the program works about 1,5 times faster; brute-force and mask attacks (LM and NTLM) are now multi-threaded for better performance on SMP systems, dual-core processors and processors with HyperThreading technology; multilingual user interface has been implemented; the "Passwords by time - running total" report has been added; SAM and SYSTEM files from Windows Vista are now supported, and much more. Version 1.61 adds German user interface and German help file. |
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