Hex editor with word password

[kevo]

I recently lost a password to a MSword document i had saved and while
trying to figure out a way to recover the password i came across these
instructions on numerous websites:

1.) Open a protected document in MS Word
2.) Save as "Web Page (*.htm; *.html)", close Word
3.) Open html-document in any Text-Editor
4.) Search "<w:UnprotectPassword>" tag, the line reads something like
that: <w:UnprotectPassword>ABCDEF01</w:UnprotectPassword>
5.) Keep the "password" in mind
6.) Open original document (.doc) with any hex-editor
7.) Search for hex-values of the password (reverse order!)
8.) Overwrite all 4 double-bytes with 0x00, Save, Close
9.) Open document with MS Word, Select "Tools / Unprotect Document"
(password is blank)


Apperently this is a loophole someone discovered that allows anybody to
gain access to a protected word or excel document.
But why the hell would you be hacking into a protected document to
change the password if you can already open it to begin with??
This is so stupid.
If anybody can help me with this, i would be greatly appreciated. I need
a way to regain access to a document and these instructions are not
making sense to me.

kevin

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

This newsgroup is for questions about security in Access, the database
product that's part of Office Professional.

You'd be better off reposting your question to a newsgroup related to Word.

 

[kevo]

This newsgroup is for questions about security in Access, the database
product that's part of Office Professional.

You'd be better off reposting your question to a newsgroup related to Word.

sorry wrong group/

 

[Chris Mills]

Bear in mind, that opening files with the wrong "manipulator" can scrogg it.

Since this is an Access newsgroup, opening an Access database mdb in Word will
most likely render it to history and unrecoverable.

By anyone...

Chris

 

[Boy]

From my experience, password recovery services is the best way out if you forgot a password to your Word document. I don't know what algorithms they use to unprotect files, but password protected documents are unlocked almost immediately after the user uploads them to the services. I can recommend a service called Password-find.com I personally used a while back - or you can find a service that best suits you if you google something like "online word password recovery".