Proactive Windows Security Explorer 2.0.4426 is a Network Monitoring Software product from elcomsoft.com, get 5 Stars SoftSea Rating, Proactive Windows Security Explorer (PWSE) is security testing tool that is designed to allow Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP-based systems administrators to identify and close password related security holes in their networks. It performs an audit of account passwords, and exposes insecure account passwords (if any). If it is possible to recover the password within a reasonable time, the password is considered insecure. PWSE supports retrieval from dump files (pwdump/pwdump2/pwdump3 and others), local registry, binary registry files (SAM and SYSTEM), local memory, and memory of remote computers including machines that are running Active Directory. It can also be used to perform brute-force and dictionary attacks on LM and NTLM password hashes. Several options allow you to limit the range of passwords to a specific lenght, charset, mask and more.
Features and Benefits:
* Determine how secure your corporate network is
* Test the strength of passwords protecting user accounts
* Recover account passwords
* Perform attacks with brute force, by the dictionary, or with a mask from inside or outside of your network
* Recover up to 95% of passwords in just minutes from the inside with Rainbow attack
How Secure Is Your Network
A single weak password exposes your entire network to an external threat. Password-hacking is one of the most critical and commonly exploited network security threats. Network users employ short and simple passwords that are easy to remember, but are also easy to break. They often use repeating characters, simple words and names for easier memorizing. Making them use computer-generated passwords that consist of random characters will only make the problem more severe, as the users will write the passwords down on the proverbial yellow stickers. There is more information available on the issue in the Elcomsoft whitepaper Proactive Is Better than Reactive: Testing Password Safety - a Key to Securing a Corporate Network.
Network administrators are also part of the problem, as they may forget purging terminated employees, forcing people to change passwords often, or locking out the users after a certain number of failed login attempts.
Network Security Policies
Weak passwords are easy to break, while complex passwords are difficult to memorize. Having an elaborate security policy is the only way to ensure the security of your network. Force network users to change passwords regularly, and audit the network after every change. Did it take Proactive Password Auditor 30 days to break a password when you performed the last audit Then examine your network at least once a month to ensure ongoing security.
Network Security Audit
Proactive Password Auditor examines the security of your network by attempting to break into the network. It tries common attacks on the account passwords in an attempt to recover a password of a user account.
Proactive Password Auditor allows carrying out a password audit within a limited period of time. If it is possible for Proactive Password Auditor to recover a password within a reasonable time, the entire network cannot be considered secure.
Recover Account Passwords
Network administrators can use Proactive Password Auditor to recover Windows account passwords, too. Proactive Password Auditor analyzes user password hashes and recovers plain-text passwords, allowing accessing their accounts, including EFS-encrypted files and folders.
Types of Attacks
Proactive Password Auditor uses several basic methods for testing and recovering passwords, including brute force attack, mask attack, dictionary search, and Rainbow table attack. The Rainbow attack is particularly impactful, as it uses pre-computed hash tables that allow finding up to 95% of passwords in just minutes instead of days or weeks. Fortunately, the Rainbow attack cannot be performed from outside of your network! You'll need either administrative access or a dump file exported by Elcomsoft System Recovery.
Compatibility with Other Elcomsoft Products
Proactive Password Auditor supports off-line recovery of account passwords by analyzing dump files saved by Elcomsoft System Recovery, local Registry, binary Registry files (SAM and SYSTEM), memory of the local computer, and memory of remote computers (Domain Controllers), including ones running Active Directory.
The off-line recovery speed can be outstandingly enhanced when using Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery. Thanks to the patent-pending GPU acceleration technology available in Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery, the recovery using a single PC is up to 50 times faster as compared to CPU-only mode and other password-recovery applications. Adding more computers increases the recovery speed linearly with zero scalability overhead.
Compatibility
Proactive Password Auditor supports Windows NT4, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. The license of this networking software is Free Trial Software, the price is $299.00, you can free download and get a free trial before you buy. If you want to get a full or nolimited version of Proactive Windows Security Explorer, you can buy this networking software.