Unlocking MS Office 2007/2010 documents

Cloud-based password unlocking service Password-Find introduced a new decrypting algorithm that unlocks half of Microsoft Office 2007/2010 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in a matter of seconds.

When users set passwords in Word and Excel documents, they believe the files are reliably protected. In practice, passwording has never provided effective protection in Microsoft Office. For example, every document saved with default MS Office 97-2003 protection is vulnerable to instantaneous unlocking.

In response to this vulnerability, Microsoft created more secure default protection starting with Office 2007 and then, 2010. Recently, Password-Find introduced a new decrypting algorithm that can unlock about half of the Office documents that have the new protection. Now, these MS Office 2007/2010 documents are no longer secure.

The previous technology for unlocking 2007/2010 documents was strongly affected by the length of the password that locked the document. Using up-to-date hardware, a password consisting of 3 printable characters required about an hour to unlock. In contrast, a password consisting of 5 printable characters would take more than a year. Previously, only a document protected with a short or weak password could be reliably unlocked.

Using the new decryption technology, documents can be unlocked instantly. According to the Service statistics, this method works for about half of locked 2007/2010 documents.

To unlock a document, a user visits www.password-find.com and uses the simple interface to upload a locked document to the site. The service works on the “pay-for-results” principle, so users can check the results for free and then pay only for success. When successful, the system instantly displays the beginning of the unlocked document. Then, the user pays the one-time license fee and downloads the complete unlocked file.

In the event the system cannot unlock the user´s document, Password-Find’s data center offers an alternative approach to unlock the file and to actually provide the original password used to lock the file.

Once the document is unlocked and partially displayed, the user buys a license to download the full unlocked document. The license to remove password costs $19.95 and works to download unlimited unlocked files.

Alternatively, the user may buy a license to find password which uses Password-Find’s data center to not only unlock the document but to actually recover the original password locking the file. This license costs $39.95 per document.

Both license types never expire.