Excel recognizes two different spellings as the same password

C

cmaddox

I have a workbook for which the password is "Mitch"...however, the password
"mytch" works as well. They are case sensitive, ie., if the 'y' is used, the
'm' must be lower case. It doesn't really matter, but I find it sloppy that
the system mixes these two words up. Has anyone else encountered a similar
problem?
 
E

Elkar

How bizarre! You're right, both Excel 2003 and 2007, "Mitch" and "mytch" can
be used interchangibly to password protect a worksheet. It actually appears
that any text string with the format of ?i* can be undone with the text
string ?y* as long as the ? changes case.

Interesting find.
Elkar
 
C

cmaddox

Do you think it is something they would fix? Seems like it could cause
problems...
 
J

Jerry W. Lewis

It has long been known that Excel collapses passwords into relatively few
equivalence groups, which is the basis for a password cracking program that
has been around for years. I have not previously seen such a near match
accepted, but Excel passwords are much less secure than one might otherwise
expect.

Jerry
 

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