Wdigest
What is WDigest?
Digest Authentication is a challenge/response protocol that was primarily used in Windows Server 2003 for LDAP and web-based authentication. It utilizes Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Authentication Security Layer (SASL) exchanges to authenticate. At a high level, a client requests access to something, the authenticating server challenges the client, and the client responds to the challenge by encrypting its response with a key derived from the password. The encrypted response is compared to a stored response on the authenticating server to determine if the user has the correct password. Microsoft provides a much more in-depth explanation of WDigest, how it works, and some of its uses here.
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