Hi List, i had to unlock a password protected word template today. It was protected against modification (not the access protection)
So i thought i might share these simple steps to unlock such documents. A feature of word documents is, that they are some kind of zip files with a different extenstion. When you unzip these files you get a lot of folders/files like _rels customXml docProps word <-- the main files in the folder "word" you will find a settings.xml, when you open it look for the tag <w:documentProtection It will look similar to this: <w:documentProtection w:edit="forms" w:enforcement="1" w:cryptProviderType="rsaFull" w:cryptAlgorithmClass="hash" w:cryptAlgorithmType="typeAny" w:cryptAlgorithmSid="4" w:cryptSpinCount="100000" w:hash="dawdadaw4324aw2dascas=" w:salt="sdf+sdfdsf/WA=="/> delete that tag. Replace the settings.xml in the zip. save and rename to .dotx/.doc/.whatever again. That's it, the document is unlocked. I mean, they are even using salted hashes and all you need to do is delete the line. Like its 1998. Impressive. Have a nice day, Conan the Bavarian _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
