What is password mining?
Password mining is the process of searching for and enumerating encrypted or cleartext passwords stored in persistent or volatile memory on the target system. The primary objective of this process involves identifying potentially useful user accounts and application passwords, which can then expand our authority over a target system and potentially provide us with elevated privileges.
Given the nature of Windows configurations and deployment use cases, this process will differ from target to target. Therefore, it is important to have a good understanding of how and where passwords, both encrypted and cleartext, are stored on Windows.
It is also important to understand that this process relies on a series of vulnerabilities that are a result of an organization's or individual's password security practices. Poor password security practices are the primary target for attackers as they provide a straightforward access vector, without the need for...
