Xaoswolf's Journal: Password, we don't need no stinking password

So, I got an Excel spreadsheet that's password protected, is there an easy way to crack it?

yes.

[Organized Konfusion]

http://www.elcomsoft.com/aoxppr.html [elcomsoft.com]

Quick Idea

[baldass_newbie]

Try 'blank'.
Sometimes people just don't set them, whilst protecting the sheet/workbook.
Seriously.

Still using "XOR encryption?"

[Zarf]

Last I checked Microsoft products used XOR encryption to "password protect" their contents. To get the password, search to the end of the document for an area with a lot of blanks. The Zeroes that are intrinsic in Microsoft document formats yeild the encryption key in plain text...

This is how I figured out the encryption on the Que Cat. I happened to scan a barcode that was mostly zeroes and spotted the pattern. If you don't believe me use google and find out differently.

Not so simple

[MarkusQ]

Last I heard, it wasn't quite that simple [gnome.org] (though still not ultra-secure).

-- MarkusQ