Viewing dialup passwords in Win95, 98, ME

1. Right click on the icon of the dialup connection you want to view the password of.

2. Check enable PPP loging check box.

3. Go to your C:\windows directory or the directory where you installed windows in.

4. View ppplog.txt that is stored in the win directory.

5. Unless you can read and understand hexadecimal, ignore the pane on the left and look at the pane in the right.

6. The password is right underneath the username.

this is an obvious security weakness in windows 95,98,ME. no thanks to PAP and the ability to log the password to the hard disk.

Any of the ubiquitous 'make the asterisks go away' programs will unhide the password from the connect box, or a program called pwlview can brute-force decrypt the passwords from password lists stored on disk. (In win95 OSR2 and above, this may take a while, as they're no longer stored using weak encryption)

Given that 9X's security model revolves around the box being single-user, physically secure¹, and not running any malicious code², it would be easy enough to write a program that waits for a user to log on (and hence unlock the .PWL), calls the PWL api, and asks for the password. Windows would be all too happy to oblige. Pwlview can dump the passwords from an unlocked PWL, but does need physical access. Microsoft PWLEDIT does too, but it doesn't tell you the passwords, merely the usernames.

1. All together now, 'If it's not physically secure, it's not secure'...

2. But so does every other OS, too.
Quite frankly, if someone has the kind of access to your box where they can run arbitrary code without your knowlege, your're stuffed no matter what OS you're using.