Methods for recovering passwords are often called attacks. With the current version of our software, you can implement three types of attacks. They are used for recovering passwords to documents created in Microsoft Excel and Word 97 or higher (except the Excel and Word 97 French editions).
• Brute-force attack. Such an attack checks all possible variants of a password. You specify the length and character range of the password. It is the most reliable type of attack, but it is also takes the longest time.
• Mask-based brute-force attack.
Here you have a greater opportunity to apply rules for generating passwords – you can specify a mask for the password. Such an attack reduces the search time, but it implies that you have some information about the password that makes it possible to specify the mask.
We have implemented an advanced mechanism for specifying masks. You can specify the range of possible values for individual characters in the password generated by the program.
• Dictionary-based attack. Here a limited number of passwords stored in a text file called a dictionary is checked. There is a password on each line in the file, and the program reads and checks them one by one. This is usually the fastest way to recover a password since it is a word that makes sense and can be entered into the dictionary.
Our software implements advanced features for carrying out dictionary-based attacks. It is a dictionary manager making it possible to search several dictionaries one by one. It is transforms passwords read from the dictionaries and adds numbers to them. This can make it easier to find the password.