This policy setting determines whether the operating system stores passwords in a way that uses reversible encryption, which provides support for application protocols that require knowledge of the user's password for authentication purposes. Passwords that are stored with reversible encryption are essentially the same as plaintext versions of the passwords. Countermeasure: Disable the Store password using reversible encryption for all users in the domain setting. Potential Impact: If your organization uses either the CHAP authentication protocol through remote access or IAS services or Digest Authentication in IIS, you must configure this policy setting to Enabled. This setting is extremely dangerous to apply through Group Policy on a user-by-user basis, because it requires the appropriate user account object to be opened in Active Directory Users and Computers.

[enabled/disabled]

(1) GPO: Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Account Policies\Password Policy\Store passwords using reversible encryption (2) REG: ### (3) WMI: root\rsop\computer#RSOP_SecuritySettingBoolean#Setting#KeyName = 'ClearTextPassword' And precedence=1