Where on my computer do I find a list of my stored passwords?
Windows 7
Firefox
You can’t.
In the case of Windows, all that is stored in the registry is a hash (a probably unique number) computed from the password. These hashes can be extracted from the registry and tested against a rainbow table (a special dictionary of possible passwords), but it does require specialised software and powerful computers. There are some websites that claim to test hashes against rainbow tables - I have not tested them so cannot make claims to their veracity or safety (would you give your computer password to a random website on the internet - I wouldn’t). If you have a good password (long, mixed case, punctuation) even rainbow tables may not be able to help.
In the case of Firefox, there are password viewer tools available (via Google) - I am not sure how good and safe they are. Firefox uses a per profile SQLlite Database to store website URLs and username/password. These entries are encrypted, not hashed (as they need to be passed back to the website unencrypted as if they were typed), and can be decrypted with a Firefox master encryption key.
Si
Firefox Passwords - [ Tools | Options | Security | Saved Passwords … | Show Passwords ]
Thanks, guys. Should be all I need.
Dukster that is most interesting. Firefox has a lot of things tucked away.
Yes… this will end well…
Just to follow up on si_blakely’s comment, yes Windows stores them in hash format. But it’s not really rocket surgery (nor brain science) to reverse the hash. There are open-source tools out there that you can use break the hash in 15 minutes or so - without needing a fancy machine (a 5 year old laptop will do the trick). It’s all about approaching the crypto sensibly instead of trying to brute force it (kind of like a woman, I suppose ; they hate when you try to brute force them).
Rainbow tables are, indeed very useful. They’re like more like “advanced guessing.” You can also attempt hash collisions (resource intensive, but effective), or… (drum roll) THE DOG’S NAME!
You can reverse the NT hash of a good password in 15 minutes?
Lets clarify - you cannot reverse the hash - that is a mathematical impossibility, for anybody.
You can use a rainbow table to find a collision to give you a password, and that may take a suitably short period of time on a low powered machine if the password is matched by the dictionary and you have precomputed or downloaded a suitable table. It is the precomputation that is the killer. NT hash rainbow tables for strong passwords can run to Terabyte plus size, and take years to compute. I already noted that you can use an internet service to attack a hash, but I would not wish to do so.
Oh, and my pets names are always at least 9 characters, mixed case with a number and a punctuation mark (which I sometimes pronounce) 
Si
SANS would appear to disagree. However, your point is valid. “Reverse” is one of those words that gets thrown around with multiple meanings in the trade.
You’re right, though. hash collisions are what I was referring to. LM was notoriously easy to break, NTLMv2 has some warts of its own.
LM hashes are virtually pointless now - and should be completely disabled.
That SANS site obviously has more storage/CPU than sense - a direct database of all possible hashes is simple but hugely inefficient in generation, storage and searching. And he only has a 40% hit rate. Rainbow tables are smaller and faster (but do take longer to generate). This means for the same CPU/Database size you can have much better coverage of the attack space.
Si