RE: Code to recover passwords

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

Just as an aside, I worked on IT Security Awareness end-user stuff for our
organization, then moved on to something else. A colleague took over and
finished it. She then went to the Federal Information Systems Security
Educators' Association Conference in Washington, this past April.

Our website, and a poster that went up in our offices, were submitted for a
contest...and won.

The poster was created by another colleague, and I think it is quite good. I
can see why it won. Although it had some good competition, there were (I
think) 88 other submissions. The poster shows examples of (fairly) strong
passwords that are still easy to remember.

You can see the poster (or rather a link to the PDF), at:

http://csrc.nist.gov/organizations/fissea/FISSEA-contest/previous-winners.shtml


The password I use on the document that has the list of other passwords is
much stronger than these examples, but you get the idea.

fumei wrote:
There are numerous places that purport to crack passwords, but we will not
help with this. You can try searching for sites that say they can do this.

If this is a password for opening the file (as opposed to a password for
protecting a document for forms), there is a VERY clear and explicit warning
given. When you password protect a document Word displays:

CAUTION: if you lose or forget the password, it can not be recovered. It is
advisable to keep a list of passwords and their corresponding document names
in a safe place.

The responsibility for this belongs to the person putting the password on the
document. It is foolish to think one can remember all the darn passwords we
have to deal with. I have one document, well hidden in the file system, in a
folder with tightly restricted permissions, and password protected with a
VERY strong password. That document contains a list - as Microsoft very
clearly suggests - of passwords and their document names. That way, while I
may forget any given password for a document say three years old (likely), I
can get that password from ONE document that is very very tightly controlled.

Unbreakable? Hardly. But the password to open that one document is
extremely strong and would take quite a bit of brute force to crack.
Impossible? No, but someone would:

1. have to find that document first, which would not be easy in itself

2. crack a very tough password.

I sympathize with the frustration of wanting to open a document for which you
have forgotten the password. However, there is a very very clear cautionary
warning.

N.B. I had a boss who did this, forgot his password on an important document.
He sent it to me asking if I knew how to get through and open it. I replied
that same way...the responsibility was yours...so no. Then, as I suspected
he used a weak password, for fun (and on my own time), I did brute force
attempts to find the password. I did. However, I never told him, and never
gave him the document I succeeded in opening.

tried this does not work.

[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]

Good luck with your password cracking endeavours!

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