Protecting your SAM Database

How to I protect my system. How to make my PC more secure on windows environment there are few common way we can protect our PC

By setting the BIOS password.
By Setting Windows password
By using system Hardware key

By using SYSKEY Utility.

I know most of will know the first 3 way of protecting and the fourth is quite different. Even thought SYSKEY Utility. is part of our OS we are not used to it . Let me explain about it .first we will know where this SYSKEY Utility resides inside our OS it’s in C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder. This utility is used to protect the System Account Manager Database (SAM) to run this utility go to run and type syskey

Fig1
The SYSKEY Utility will open now

Fig 2

Ok what is SAM what it does, this is the place where the OS will maintain the system username and password in encrypted format, now what the SYSKEY utility will do . it will move the decryption key to the floppy disk so that if you put the Floppy disk, only the system will open . Lets explain what’s there in the fig 2 here we have the Encryption Disabled and Encryption Enabled.

When you select the Encryption Disabled it will not encrypt the syskey if you select Encryption Enabled it will encrypt. After that clink the update button

Fig 3
In this screen we have the two options first the password setup which the user can give for their own or else we can select the system generated password. Again here we have the two way of storing the password. When you select the store startup key on floppy disk. The encrypted key will be stored in the floppy or if you select the store startup key locally it will be stored in the local system itself. This one of the most secure way to protect your system the data.