What is a plain text password and why can it be decypted?

Question

I was trying to understand the level of security offered by Windows picture passwords and ran across this claim on this website.

Some of our password recovery utilities already implement Windows 8 plain-text password decryption. The upcoming release of Windows Password Recovery is expected to have a full-fledged Vault analyzer and offline decoder.

I'm trying to understand what a plain text password is and if it is the default kind of password when I add a password to my account. My head is a bit muddled on this one so any clarification can help.

It seems there are passwords that can be decrypted and those that can't. What can be decrypted? Is the password I enter in Windows exposed?

Answer 1

In this context "plain text password" means the normal kind of password we've all used for years. lowercase, uppercase, symbols etc. But it's all text. Not pictures. As for why it can be decrypted, i assume they are using the same sort of tricks that have been around forever, rainbow tables and whatnot.