How to decrypt a password from SQL server

Question

Use the following SQL Server 2000 query:

select pwdencrypt('AAAA')

Which produces the encrypted character string "AAAA":

0x0100CF465B7B12625EF019E157120D58DD46569AC7BF4118455D12625EF019E157120D58DD46569AC7BF4118455D

How can I translate (decrypt) the output from its 'AAAA' source?

Answer 1

I think pwdencrypt uses a hash, and the algorithm is built to make it hard to reverse the hashed string. The standard method for checking a password submitted by a user is to hash it and then compare it to the database's hashed version.

This is how you might check a used table that was entered : 

SELECT password_field FROM mytable WHERE password_field=pwdencrypt(userEnteredValue)

(Big surprise) Replace userEnteredValue with the value that the user entered.