Time is money, difficult to contradict this fact. And another proven fact is that you lose something exactly when something turns out to be absolutely necessary. Once you lost a password to your Word document or presentation that you were going to give in an hour, or Excel report which was supposed to be sent to your manager yesterday… you will count seconds before you get back your files.
And so, the crucial difference between Advanced Office Password Recovery (AOPR) and Advanced Office Password Breaker (AOPB) lies in TIME needed for getting your data back.
The two programs have opposite approaches for decrypting the document contents. So, how do they work? Microsoft Office converts each password to its own encryption key. And so we can either search for the correct password itself or find the document encryption key. Accordingly, AOPR tries all possible passwords (using brute force/mask/dictionary attacks) to find the right one, whereas AOPB takes the document encryption key that you can use to decrypt the document and get your data back.
Since ElcomSoft developed special technology that uses precomputed tables for Word and Excel (Thunder Tables ™) with 40-bit encryption keys, it takes seconds to find Word and Excel encryption keys.
Find program differences reflected in the table:
| Advanced Office Password Recovery | Advanced Office Password Breaker |
| • works with all MS Office components (Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Project, Visio etc) • supports all versions (from ancient 2.0 for DOS to Office 2007) • finds all kinds of passwords (to open, save, document/sheet protection, VBA etc) • uses brute-force, mask and dictionary attacks • does not guarantee finding long and complex password in real/reasonable time |
• works with MS Word and Excel documents only • supports Office 97/2000, as well as Office XP/2003 with default/compatible 40-bit encryption • deals with file-open-passwords only • uses encryption key attack • guaranteed key search and document decryption • instant key recovery using precomputed tables (Enterprise version only) with 100% probability for Word documents and 97% for Excel files |
You see, it’s all about time. If you have time, you can use AOPR to recover lost password. If you have no time, use AOPB and attack the encryption key and decrypt your document instantly.
I own both programs and I am extremely happy with them. You guys are the best source on the planet for this stuff.
Thanks for your kind words
I have 1 file that I need to break and like a fool I forgot the password after upping the standard encryption on the file to the 128 bit RC4, Microsoft Enhanced DSS. I am assuming that brute force will be by best option. Will AOPR work for me?
Yes, AOPR will work. I recommend to try the dictionary attack first and then try brute-force. If you remember the password length and some symbols – you can apply mask to the brute-force.
Ok. Which version of AOPR do I need?
David, it depends on the file format. Please see the supported file formats here:
http://www.elcomsoft.com/aopr.html
There is a table and the end of page.
Its an MS Excel 2003 file but like I said I upped the security to the 128 bit RC4, Microsoft Enhanced DSS and Diffie-Hellman. So Can I use AOPR or am I up sits creak? And which version?
Home edition of AOPR is enough to find this type of password.
Still waiting for PR for Office 2007.
I use Home edition of AOPR to recover excel password. Can I stop and continue next day?
Sure – you can stop password recovery and save the project. The project can be opened anytime and the recovery will start from last tested password.
thao tran, of course. Look at [File] | [Open project], [Save project] menu items.
When I try and use the tables I get the error “Cannot find rainbow tables at this path” I copied the contents of the DVD to a USB drive. As a test, I tried to run them directly from the DVD and I get the warning about running them from the DVD and then get the same error as above.
My email was wrong in that last message, here is the correct one.
Have you set the proper path to the pables in the program options? Press the Browse button (at the right of Use pre-computed hash tables), and select the right folder. For Word, it is the one that contains ‘0′..’5′ subfolders and missing.bin file; for Excel, it
contains ‘0×62′ and ‘0×66′ subfolders.
I have an Access 2000 application, but the gay who manage this leave the company and no body nows the security password to acces the aplication, what software do you recomend for me.
Thanks
Humberto, what do you mean by “security password to access the application”? In any case, please try “Advanced Office Password recovery” first; if it will not help — I think your application uses some non-standard protection (not supported by our software).
I have a Word 2007 encrypted document. The password is complicated. What is the VBA Backdoor? Will this help with my Word 2007 document? I don’t care what the password is as much as what is in the document.
Bob D, if your document is protected by “file open” password the VBA Vackdoor will not help. This password is very strong and if it’s complicated – only dictionary attack may help. Also you can try to set a mask in brute-force attack if you remember the parts of password.
Can I log on as a guest on a remote computer, and recover a password if I have the screen name?
Craig — sorry, no way. It is possible to get password hashes (to recover plaintext passwords from them) only having Administrator privileges.
Hola tengo un archivo de Excel 2003, pero codificado Microsoft Strong Cryptographic Provider, los programas de fuerza bruta y de diccionario no han ayudado, los he adquirido y me he arrepentido. La contrasena tiene letras minusculas, mayusculas y numeros y debe tener 10 caracteres. Su programa sirbe para acceder al archivo? Y si es asi que version. Gracia
Hola, Ricardo.
Perdon per no haberle respondido antes. Es que, si el archivo contiene la codificacion Microsoft Strong Cryptographic Provider, no es posible garantizar la recuperacion de los datos(
Ademas, ya has probado los programas de fuerza bruta y los ataques con el diccionario, entonces, si no lo consiguieron(aceder al archivo), nosotros tampoco podemos ((( lo unico que podemos ofrecerle es que trates de cambiar el diccionario, pero todavia no hay la garantia de recuperar la contrasena de 10 simbolos(
I have about 20 Excel files, with a 97-2000 (RCA 40-bit) “file open” password on them.
It appears the passwords are complex.
I’m opting for Advanced Password Breaker Enterprise Edition; can you tell me how long the “Express Delivery” takes? (I am in Norwich, in the UK).
Thanks,
Usually, delivery trakes 3-4 days (we ship the disks from Canada).
what the character which dosent recover.?????????