I’ll show how to use a couple modules provided with PowerShell to access credentials stored securely in Credential Manager. security key), in order to verify the user and also forbids all remote access with your user ID! The Windows method of storing credentials or other secrets makes most sense if the workstation user requires a strong password and biometric user access or ‘access dongle’ ( a.k.a. Windows Credential Manager adds a facility to allow the user to list credentials and to update passwords as they inevitably change. It is easy for an application to use this method of storing credentials, but it not at all easy for the users to maintain all their passwords. The added encryption provides an extra layer of security to make it much more difficult for anyone to access the data in the file directly from the drive. It isn’t just credentials that you can store there but any information that needs to be protected.

For a long time, Windows-based applications and scripts have stored such credentials, encrypted, in the user area, which is a secure storage area that is protected by the user’s Windows account credentials. He is a regular contributor to Simple Talk and SQLServerCentral.Īny script on a Windows machine that needs to access data that is outside the logged-in user’s Windows domain will be required to identify itself, via credentials. Phil Factor (real name withheld to protect the guilty), aka Database Mole, has 30 years of experience with database-intensive applications.ĭespite having once been shouted at by a furious Bill Gates at an exhibition in the early 1980s, he has remained resolutely anonymous throughout his career.

Credential manager control panel