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Salting is an added layer of password protection that is (surprisingly) not used in the Active Directory Kerberos authentication protocol. The Domain Controller then decrypts the timestamp using the user’s locally-stored password hash, and authenticates the user. When a user logs onto their computer, the machine sends an Authentication Service Request that is composed of an encrypted timestamp using the user’s password hash. The NT hash is encrypted using a custom Windows algorithm, while the LM hash is created using the extremely vulnerable MD4 algorithm. When a user creates or changes a password in Active Directory, Windows generates a LAN Manager hash (LM) and a Windows NT hash (NT). How do you like your hashes?ĭifferent applications use different hashing algorithms, which vary greatly in terms of security. Hashes are of fixed size so passwords of different lengths will have the same number of characters, and are designed to be a one-way encryption, so that once they are coded, no one should be able to break that code (theoretically). Passwords stored in Active Directory are hashed – meaning that once the user creates a password, an algorithm transforms that password into an encrypted output known as, you guessed it, a “hash”.

How are passwords stored in Active Directory? The most common breach vector is stolen credentials, so it’s important for IT professionals to understand how easy it is to crack passwords and take the necessary steps to protect their Active Directory services. Windows services that are enabled by default, such as LLMNR and NetBIOS (NBT), make your organization more susceptible to cyberattacks by allowing hackers to easily obtain Active Directory password hashes.

The fact is that most enterprises use Active Directory as the cornerstone of their IT systems and, while AD can be configured in a very secure way, it runs on Windows, which is vulnerable by default. The massive Equifax data breach compromised sensitive information for roughly 143MM people and is a sobering reminder that security flaws still exist in most organizations.