Principles of Online Password Cracking for Excel, Word, and PDF

2024-07-22 12:29:18

To decrypt files, you must know that there is no software as well as tools to remove passwords directly.

Most people don't think that recovering the password for an encrypted document is a very slow and resource-intensive process, but it is.

Below, we'll explain in simple language what the password recovery process is and how it works on our cloud service. How to Get Back a Lost Password Let's assume that you have accidentally lost the password for a protected file, and you want to recover it.

First of all, you shouldn't waste your time trying to find a program to hack protected files easily because such programs don't exist. All modern software such as MS Office uses cryptographic algorithms to encrypt data; The stability of these algorithms is mathematically proven. As a result, the password recovery process is a long search through a large number of variants to find the right password. Just to let you imagine the scale of the work: there are more than 60 trillion (60 * 1018) variants of a 60-character password. The number only reflects a password that consists of letters, numbers, and special symbols. If there are Greece letters and other symbols to choose from, the number of possible variants will increase even further, so that even supercomputers will not be able to conduct a direct search through such a large number of possible ciphers in a reasonable time (the so-called brute force method), since the testing process of each possible cipher requires complex mathematical calculations, which require a lot of processor time and power. The more complex the encryption algorithm, the slower the password search process. Recover passwords via dictionary But things aren't as bad as they seem. People usually choose "easy-to-remember" passwords, which make them easier to recover. Many commonly used passwords have a simple, easy-to-read form or are compiled according to certain rules. These are common words like "shadow", pet nicknames, word combinations like "letmein", words plus numbers like "John1234", date of birth, simple combinations of numbers like "654321", letter neighbors on the keyboard like "asdcxz", and other types of passwords that are easy for almost anyone to remember.

Compared to 60 trillion possibilities, these types of combinations are not many, which greatly simplifies our task. Currently, we have collected a database of more than 20 billion commonly used passwords for brute force cracking. This password database gives us a good chance, but it still doesn't guarantee 100% success. Still, we managed to find the password in more than half of the cases, which is a good result.

Brute-force Passwords Using Masks If you know the structure of a lost password, you can use the mask to search for all possible passwords. For example, if you know that a password consists of 8 or 9 characters, starting with "999" and the rest of the characters are lowercase English letters, the search process will be much easier. In this case, the total number of all possible variants is 333,629,036. Our computing cluster will brute-force such a protected file in just a few minutes. Brute-forcing a password with a dictionary is a fixed-cost job, but brute-forcing with a mask is a custom task. You can use a custom request page to describe everything you know about your lost password: expected length and character set, etc. Perhaps, you know the characters at the beginning or end of your password. We can create masks based on these criteria, count the total number of possible password variants, and let you know the cost of the work. Note that this will be prepaid work and success will only be guaranteed if the specified mask parameters are correct. If you make a mistake in describing the structure of your password (for example, the password is actually longer and/or contains characters outside of the specified set), the combination mask will not help you find it. However, the work has been completed and the payment is non-refundable. Brute force cracking that uses masks only if you are sure of the exact password structure! Can I use my home computer to retrieve my lost password? Not really. Of course, there are some password recovery programs you can try on your computer, but there are some important facts to be aware of: Most of these programs are shareware. In free mode, they will allow you to search for passwords of very limited length (usually no more than 4 characters).

A sophisticated user will successfully try such a program and buy it, hoping to crack a longer password. However, the number of possible variants with longer passwords is not growing linearly, but exponentially. For example, the process of cracking a 4-character password is to search only 15 million alphanumeric variants. There are 931 million possible variations (62 times) for a 5-character password, while there are about 58 billion for a 6-character password. This is a difficult task even for a very powerful computer, so don't even try to crack a 7-character password. The functionality of the cracked program is limited by the resources of the computer.

In our cloud system, we have a powerful cluster of high-performance GPU servers. This is a distributed computing system. In other words, passwords can be recovered by several powerful servers at the same time, and we can do in a matter of hours what a modern home computer would take months or even years to do.

Shareware programs don't include a good password dictionary. All it can do is create a combinatorial attack: combine words and numbers from a small dictionary and change the capitalization of the letters. It takes a long time, and it only helps to crack the simplest passwords. Last but not least, when you buy a cracked program, you will have to pay even if you can't find the password. We only charge for passwords that are successfully found. Fast, secure and convenient. Instant password recovery It usually refers to the quick recovery of passwords in case of weak encryption.

For example, the password for an Access database or an older word or excel file. Password Reset In some cases, it is possible to reset a password by replacing or removing it directly from the file. Brute force attacks are the most common way to decrypt your files. This attack simply attempts every combination of characters in a given set in an attempt to recover your password. Recovering a password co, for example, when using the "a" lowercase letter, requires 26 combinations (from "A" to "z"). In the case of two letters, we have 26x26 = 676. We're dealing with exponential growth, so automatic password combinations are higher, so password recovery is more difficult. Of course, the combination can have uppercase letters, numbers, or special characters, in which case a lengthy password recovery (depending on the length) can be done in a matter of days or weeks. We use specialized software to distribute computing power across multiple servers, which greatly reduces password recovery time. Dictionary Attack This recovery method uses dictionaries. The professional software tries every word in the dictionary as a password. In addition to common words, a good dictionary also contains some commonly used combinations in passwords, such as "qwerty". Dictionary password recovery methods are often much faster than brute force attacks. Of course, password recovery will be slower if the dictionary is large, but this method is usually used before brute-force password recovery. There are different ways to combine the above two types of recovery (hybrid approach). Password changes This recovery method is commonly used when a password may have been mistyped. Usually, the user knows that the password contains a certain word and maybe some numbers. Either the password was mistyped, or the characters were omitted. Usually the number of combinations is small, and the password will be recovered quickly. Plaintext password attacks This method is most commonly used for password-protected zip archives. Password recovery is easier when partial archive content is known. For example, we know some encrypted files in archives. Alternatively, the archive contains some standard DLLs, which can be found in Windows or unencrypted on the Internet.

Questions and Answers (FAQs)

What is a zip password? A Zip file is a file format that is used to archive other files by compression. The files contained in the archive can be password protected. This is the password for the Zip file. How to find the password of a Zip file? The only way to recover Zip passwords is to test them. Select the Zip file on your device and click Find. How can I speed up my password search? Search is a time-consuming task (usually a few hours), and it is recommended to limit the search based on the size of the password and the characters used. Example: A 3-character password with only lowercase letters takes 17,576 attempts, while if it consists of uppercase, lowercase, and numbers, it takes 238328 attempts (13 times more). Using the resources of your browser and device, the more powerful it is, the faster the computing speed.

How Does a Zip Password Cracker Work?

The tool creates a list of possible passwords based on the selected characters and the assumed password length and attempts to extract the files from the zip archive.