Password secured using???

I'm testing a non-security software for my company and am supposed to look for 
potential security flaws and risks. I did stumble across the software 
administrator's password being stored in the configuration file as seen here:
<password>106854a5145c8143b</password>
The software looks at this string to confirm if an entered password is correct 
or not. I asked the vendor how the software converts the password (which is 
"password" for the purpose of this evaluation) to this form but didn't get a 
straight answer. I don't think its a hash so I was wondering if any of you 
gurus have an idea what it is?

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