Comments on: Are There Ms Word Password Recovery Demos That Let You View The First Few Characters Of The Password? http://techborneo.com/2009/06/11/are-there-ms-word-password-recovery-demos-that-let-you-view-the-first-few-characters-of-the-password/ Laptop,Notebook,Computer Gadget,Cheap Computer parts Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:15:59 +0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: giraffe http://techborneo.com/2009/06/11/are-there-ms-word-password-recovery-demos-that-let-you-view-the-first-few-characters-of-the-password/comment-page-1/#comment-7844 giraffe Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:50:12 +0000 http://techborneo.com/2009/06/11/are-there-ms-word-password-recovery-demos-that-let-you-view-the-first-few-characters-of-the-password/#comment-7844 Microsoft does a good job at encrypting entire files. The only way I know is a brute force attack. You can find tools by searching the net. Most of the tools are free for passwords that are less than 3 or so characters, but are actually minimal cost for longer passwords. Because of the nature of a brute force attack, and because Microsoft does a good job, you can't recover a portion of the password. I cracked an excel document whose password was "october" in about 1 week of CPU time 7 years ago. Computers are about 3 times faster now. However, don't think it will be fast. If you can remember anything about the password then you can limit the search and make it go faster. Knowing things like "no numbers" "all lower case" can make it go substantially faster. Microsoft does a good job at encrypting entire files. The only way I know is a brute force attack. You can find tools by searching the net. Most of the tools are free for passwords that are less than 3 or so characters, but are actually minimal cost for longer passwords. Because of the nature of a brute force attack, and because Microsoft does a good job, you can’t recover a portion of the password.
I cracked an excel document whose password was “october” in about 1 week of CPU time 7 years ago. Computers are about 3 times faster now. However, don’t think it will be fast. If you can remember anything about the password then you can limit the search and make it go faster. Knowing things like
“no numbers” “all lower case” can make it go substantially faster.

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