system account manager

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

System Account Manager
SAM

   <cryptography, operating system, security> (SAM) A {password}
   {database} stored as a {registry file} in {Windows NT} and
   {Windows 2000}.

   The System Account Manager (SAM) database stores users'
   passwords in a {hashed} format.  Since a {hash function} is
   one-way, this provides some measure of security for the
   storage of the passwords.  In an attempt to enhance the
   security of the SAM database against {offline cracking},
   Microsoft introduced the {SYSKEY} utility in {Windows NT} 4.0.

   (2000-07-19)