Full Answer
What is the SAM file in Windows XP?
The Security Account Manager ( SAM ), often Security Accounts Manager, is a database file in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 that stores users' passwords. It can be used to authenticate local and remote users.
What is audit Sam in Windows 10?
Windows 10; Windows Server 2016; Audit SAM, which enables you to audit events that are generated by attempts to access Security Account Manager objects. The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database that is present on computers running Windows operating systems that stores user accounts and security descriptors for users on the local computer.
What is Sam explorer in Windows password recovery?
Windows Password Recovery - SAM explorer. SAM Explorer allows you to view, analyze and edit the properties and statistics of Windows user accounts. SAM, which is short for Security Account Manager, is an RPC server, which manages Windows accounts database and stores passwords and private user data, groups logical structure of accounts,...
What is Sam on a domain controller?
On a domain controller, it simply stores the administrator account from the time it was a server, which serves as the Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) recovery account. The SAM database resides in the Windows registry. What does the SAM do? It is known that Windows computers can be configured to be in a workgroup or joined to a domain.
What is the SAM used for?
The primary purpose of the SAM is to make the system more secure and protect from a data breach in case the system is stolen. The SAM is available in different versions of Windows, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and the Windows 11.
What is SAM in Windows registry?
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a particular registry hive that stores credentials and account information for local users. User passwords are stored in a hashed format in the SAM registry hive either as an LM hash or an NT hash, depending on Group Policy settings.
What does SAM stand for in Microsoft?
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database that is present on computers running Windows operating systems that stores user accounts and security descriptors for users on the local computer.
Where is Windows SAM file located?
The SAM database is stored in two places within Windows: %systemroot%\system32\config\sam is the location of the main storage for passwords and %systemroot%\repair\sam.
How does SAM database work?
How does SAM work? The SAM database runs automatically as a background process when the computer starts up. The SAM also works together with other processes and services that run on the computer, by providing the security information needed.
How does a SAM file look like?
The SAM format consists of a header and an alignment section. The binary equivalent of a SAM file is a Binary Alignment Map (BAM) file, which stores the same data in a compressed binary representation. SAM files can be analysed and edited with the software SAMtools.
Where is SAM database located?
The SAM database is part of the registry. It's stored in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY\SAM subkey and duplicated to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM subkey. At the file-system level, the SAM registry files are stored together with the rest of the registry files under \%systemroot%\system32\config (SECURITY and SAM files).
What is SAM in Active Directory?
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database file in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and 11 that stores users' passwords. It can be used to authenticate local and remote users. Beginning with Windows 2000 SP4, Active Directory authenticates remote users.
What is SAM process?
Software asset management (SAM) is the administration of processes, policies and procedures that support the procurement, deployment, use, maintenance and disposal of software applications within an organization.
How are Windows passwords stored?
Windows password hashes are stored in the SAM file; however, they are encrypted with the system boot key, which is stored in the SYSTEM file. If a hacker can access both of these files (stored in C:WindowsSystem32Config), then the SYSTEM file can be used to decrypt the password hashes stored in the SAM file.
What is the importance of the SAM registry hive?
The SAM hive contains user passwords as a table of hash codes; the Security hive stores security information for the local system, including user rights and permissions, password policies and group membership. The SAM information is encrypted.
What is Mimikatz tool?
What is Mimikatz? Mimikatz is an open source tool originally developed by ethical hacker Benjamin Delpy, to demonstrate a flaw in Microsoft's authentication protocols. Simply put, the tool steals passwords.
What is the importance of the SAM registry hive?
The SAM hive contains user passwords as a table of hash codes; the Security hive stores security information for the local system, including user rights and permissions, password policies and group membership. The SAM information is encrypted.
What is SAM in Active Directory?
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database file in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and 11 that stores users' passwords. It can be used to authenticate local and remote users. Beginning with Windows 2000 SP4, Active Directory authenticates remote users.
How do I read a SAM file?
To open a SAM file in SAM Studio, select the gray Import icon that appears on the program's right-hand side. Then, select Import file. If you do not have access to SAM Studio, or you want to view your SAM file's plain text contents, you can also open the file in any text editor.
What is a group policy in Windows?
Group Policy is a hierarchical infrastructure that allows a network administrator in charge of Microsoft's Active Directory to implement specific configurations for users and computers. Group Policy is primarily a security tool, and can be used to apply security settings to users and computers.
What is the Security Account Manager (SAM)?
Windows stores and manages the local user and group accounts in a database file called SecurityAccount Manager (SAM). It authenticates local user logons. On a domain controller, it simply stores the administrator account from the time it was a server, which serves as the Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) recovery account. The SAM database resides in the Windows registry.
What does the SAM do?
In a workgroup, each computer holds its own SAM which contains information about all its local user and group accounts. The passwords associated with each of these accounts are hashed and stored in the SAM. The hashing of passwords offers some measure of security and minimizes the risks of an attack. The Local Security Authority (LSA) validates a user’s logon attempt by verifying their credentials against the data stored in the SAM. A user’s logon attempt is successful only when the entered password matches the password stored in the local SAM.
How does the SAM work?
The SAM database runs automatically as a background process when the computer starts up. The SAM also works together with other processes and services that run on the computer, by providing the security information needed.
Why does DSRM use SAM?
This is because the DSRM administrator password is stored locally in the SAM and not in AD. To put it simply, be it a domain-joined computer or a standalone computer, local logon can occur only through the SAM.
What is the LSA in SAM?
The Local Security Authority (LSA) validates a user’s logon attempt by verifying their credentials against the data stored in the SAM. A user’s logon attempt is successful only when the entered password matches the password stored in the local SAM.
Where is the Windows SAM database?
The Windows SAM database file resides in C:WindowsSystem32config. The hashed values of all passwords find a place in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESAM of the registry. However, there are rules that govern ‘when’ and ‘who’ can access this file.
Can a user log on to a computer as a local user?
However, when a user logs on to a computer as a local user, the user will not be able to access the network resources. A Windows server that has been promoted to a DC will use the AD database instead of the SAM to store data.
What is LM hash?
LM hash is a compromised protocol and has been replaced by NTLM hash. Most versions of Windows can be configured to disable the creation and storage of valid LM hashes when the user changes their password. Windows Vista and later versions of Windows disable LM hash by default. Note: enabling this setting does not immediately clear the LM hash values from the SAM, but rather enables an additional check during password change operations that will instead store a "dummy" value in the location in the SAM database where the LM hash is otherwise stored. (This dummy value has no relationship to the user's password - it is the same value used for all user accounts.)
What is a syskey?
When SYSKEY is enabled, the on-disk copy of the SAM file is partially encrypted, so that the password hash values for all local accounts stored in the SAM are encrypted with a key (usually also referred to as the "SYSKEY"). It can be enabled by running the syskey program.
How long does it take to crack a password?
Cryptanalysis. In 2012, it was demonstrated that every possible 8-character NTLM password hash permutation can be cracked in under 6 hours. In 2019, this time was reduced to roughly 2.5 hours by using more modern hardware.
What happens if a SAM file is deleted?
mounting the Windows OS volume into an alternate operating system), the attacker could log in as any account with no password. This flaw was corrected with Windows XP, which shows an error message and shuts down the computer. However, there exist software utilities, which, by the aforementioned methodology of using either an emulated virtual drive, or boot disk (usually Unix/Linux, or another copy of Windows like Windows Preinstallation Environment) based environment to mount the local drive housing the active NTFS partition, and using programmed software routines and function calls from within assigned memory stacks to isolate the SAM file from the Windows NT system installation directory structure (default: %SystemRoot%/system32/config/SAM) and, depending on the particular software utility being used, removes the password hashes stored for user accounts in their entirety, or in some cases, modify the user account passwords directly from this environment.
What is the vulnerability in Windows 10?
In July 2021 it was revealed there was a vulnerability within Windows 10 and Windows 11 that allowed low priviledged users to access sensitive Registry database files including the SAM file.
What is a SAM file?
The Security Account Manager ( SAM) is a database file in Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 that stores users' passwords. It can be used to authenticate local and remote users. Beginning with Windows 2000 SP4, Active Directory authenticates remote users. SAM uses cryptographic measures to prevent unauthenticated users accessing the system.
Where are passwords stored?
The user passwords are stored in a hashed format in a registry hive either as a LM hash or as an NTLM hash. This file can be found in %SystemRoot%/system32/config/SAM and is mounted on HKLM/SAM and SYSTEM privileges are required to view it.
What is a SAM?
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database that is present on computers running Windows operating systems that stores user accounts and security descriptors for users on the local computer .
What does 4661 mean?
4661 (S, F): A handle to an object was requested.
What is a Sam group?
SAM_GROUP: A group that is not a local group
Can a SACL be modified?
Only a SACL for SAM_SERVER can be modified.
What is a SAM File?
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a registry file for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 that stores local user's account passwords. The file is stored on your system drive at C:WINDOWSsystem32config. However, it is not accessible (it cannot be moved nor copied) from within the Windows OS since Windows keeps an exclusive lock on the SAM file and that lock will not be released until the computer has been shut down. An additional security feature is encryption which makes it impossible to crack passwords but it can be recognized by the operating system enabling the user to log in if he enters a correct password.
Can a SAM file be moved?
However, it is not accessible (it cannot be moved nor copied) from within the Windows OS since Windows keeps an exclusive lock on the SAM file and that lock will not be released until the computer has been shut down.
What bit is used in Kerberos?
This bit is used by the Kerberos protocol. It indicates that only des-cbc-md5 or des-cbc-crc keys are used in the Kerberos protocols for this account
What does the flag on a domain mean?
This flag indicates that the user account is in another domain. This account provides user access to this domain, but not to any domain that trusts this domain.
What is a 32 bit flag?
A 32-bit flag specifying characteristics of the account. The following values are attributes of a user account and can be combined by using a bitwise OR operation:
What is a sam explorer?
SAM Explorer allows you to view, analyze and edit the properties and statistics of Windows user accounts. SAM, which is short for Security Account Manager, is an RPC server, which manages Windows accounts database and stores passwords and private user data, groups logical structure of accounts, configures security policy (e.g., ...
What Happened?
On July 13, Microsoft released CVE-2021-33757, which enabled AES encryption by default to the remote protocol connection for MS-SAMR to mitigate the downgrade to RC4, which exposed data through insecure encryption. Microsoft subsequently released a patch for the vulnerability, KB5004605, which made changes related to the MS-SAMR protocol. Microsoft stated in documentation for the patch:
What Should I Do?
We recommend that you wait for Microsoft to release remediation steps. In the meantime, you can do a few things:
What does Blumira detect?
Blumira can detect activity related to HKLM System, Security, and SAM databases, as well as many other security incidents.
What is read ACL?
The SYSTEM and SAM credential database files have been updated to include the Read ACL set for all Users for some versions of Windows. This means that any authenticated user has the capability to extract these cached credentials on the host and use them for offline cracking, or pass-the-hash depending on the environment configuration. This has only been identified on updated Windows 10 endpoints at this point, however, it is possible Windows Servers have been impacted.
Can you delete snapshots of a VSS?
This includes deleting VSS snapshots once ACLs have been resolved — or at the least, protecting those VSS snapshots until they are patched and rolled over with new snapshots.
What is AES in Windows 10?
After installing the July 13, 2021 Windows updates or later Windows updates, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption will be the preferred method on Windows clients when using the legacy MS-SAMR protocol for password operations if AES encryption is supported by the SAM server. On July 19, a vulnerability was discovered in Windows 10 ...
What is the vulnerability in Windows 10?
On July 19, a vulnerability was discovered in Windows 10 that allows non-admins to access the Security Account Manager (SAM) database, which stores users’ passwords , according to Kevin Beaumont (Twitter user @GossiTheDog). Kevin Beaumont dubbed the vulnerability HiveNightmare aka SeriousSam.
Method 1: Copy SAM & SYSTEM Files with Admin Rights
If you can log into Windows as a user with administrative rights, you can easily dump the SAM and SYSTEM registry hives using the Command Prompt.
Method 2: Copy SAM & SYSTEM Files without Admin Rights
If you're locked out of Windows or lost admin privileges, a Live CD can help! After booting your computer into a Linux, Ubuntu or other Live CD, you can access all the files on the hard disk, and copy the SAM and SYSTEM hives from the Windows\System32\Config directory.
Step 1: Create an AWS account
If you don't already have an AWS account, see aws.amazon.com and choose Create an AWS Account. For detailed instructions, see Create and Activate an AWS Account .
Step 2: Configure IAM permissions and AWS credentials
The IAM user that you use with AWS SAM must have sufficient permissions to make necessary AWS service calls and manage AWS resources. The simplest way to ensure that a user has sufficient permissions is to grant administrator privileges to them. For more information, see Creating your first IAM admin user and group in the IAM User Guide .
Step 3: Install Docker (optional)
Docker is a prerequisite only for testing your application locally and for building deployment packages using the --use-container option. If you don't plan to use these features initially, you can skip this section or install Docker at a later time.
Step 4: Install the AWS SAM CLI
Windows Installer (MSI) files are the package installer files for the Windows operating system.
Uninstalling
To uninstall the AWS SAM CLI using Windows Settings, follow these steps:
Nightly build
A nightly build of the AWS SAM CLI is available for you to install. Once installed, you can use the nightly build using the sam-nightly command. You can install and use both the production and nightly build versions of the AWS SAM CLI at the same time.
Next steps
You're now ready to begin building your own serverless applications using AWS SAM! If you want to start with sample serverless applications, choose one of the following links:
