Break Password Pdf

[Aleshia Ducharme]

Bydefault the first user's account is an administrative account, so if the UI is prompting you for a password it's probably that person's user password. If the user doesn't remember their password you need to reset it. To do this you need to boot into recovery mode (see also offical docs: RecoveryMode).

Boot up the machine, and after the BIOS screen, hold down the left Shift key (note that for UEFI BIOS you might need press ESC instead). You will then be prompted by a menu that looks something like this:

There is concern about this being a security vulnerability. It is not. You need to have physical access to the machine to do this. If someone has physical access to your PC, they could do far worse than change a password. When it comes to physical access, the battle for security is lost. Be wary of who you let on your PC.

Even setting a root password will not be successful, as one can simply boot with init being /bin/sh and have full root access. Again, given physical access, anyone with computer knowledge can do ANYTHING to your computer.

If you have a dual-boot (Ubuntu is installed next to Windows, another Linux operating system, or Mac OS X; and you choose at boot time which operating system to boot into), the boot menu should appear without the need to hold down the shift key.

After you select recovery mode and wait for all the boot-up processes to finish, you'll be presented with a few options. In this case, you want the Drop to root shell prompt option so press the ᛎ Down arrow to get to that option, and then press Enter to select it.

You'll then be prompted for a new password. When you type the password you will get no visual response acknowledging your typing. Your password is still being accepted. Just type the password and hit Enter when you're done. You'll be prompted to retype the password. Do so and hit Enter again.

If recovery mode is disabled, the method I would use is booting to a Live CD or USB. It could be the media you installed from or just another Ubuntu ISO you've downloaded and burnt. The process is fairly simple.

If you have a single-boot (Ubuntu is the only operating system on your computer), to get the boot menu to show, you have to hold down the Shift key during bootup. From the boot menu, select recovery mode, which is usually the second boot option. After you select recovery mode and wait for all the boot-up processes to finish, you'll be presented with a few options. In this case, you want the Drop to root shell prompt option so press the Down arrow to get to that option, and then press Enter to select it.

Then I got the Recovery Menu - but when I chose Drop to Root Shell Prompt (bottom item) I was root but couldn't reset the password - because the disks were Read Only. Type exitand get back to the Recovery Menu

Then again to Drop to Root Shell Prompt and I'm root and can write - sopasswd usernamehad me enter the desired password twice - then exit to go back to Recovery MenuResume normal bootand everything worked fine with my new password! I'm the only account on this box, and my password works with sudo so I apparently have Administrative Privileges.

I was having the same problem with my password and I tried everyone's suggestions but none worked for me. So I tried some of my own and this is what worked for me... "Keep in mind I can NOT explain why it worked, all I know is it worked...

Note: (Here is the part I can't explain. After trying everything, and nothing working, I finally just started trying all the options here one at a time. When I tried the "grub Update grub boot loader" and then followed the rest of the steps all was well and password was reset.)

The password is the second group of characters after YOUR_USERNAME, between the two colons. You can replace this with a other password, for example, you could replace the existing password string (truncated for clarity):

If you do that however and happened to have used an encrypted /home directory for that username you are likely not to gain access to the files in your /home directory (and if you do then Ubuntu should be uninstalled...)

For me, on Ubuntu 16.04 VM installed in VirtualBox, when I boot into (with shift held before booting the VM) the root prompt, I always get Give root password for maintenance (or type Control-D to continue), finally I hit e at the GRUB menu with the newest recovery kernel selected in Advanced Options for Ubuntu

Yes there is, as long as you are using a .xls format spreadsheet (the default for Excel up to 2003). For Excel 2007 onwards, the default is .xlsx, which is a fairly secure format, and this method will not work.

DISCLAIMER This worked for me and I have documented it here in the hope it will help someone out. I have not fully tested it. Please be sure to save all open files before proceeding with this option.

*NOTE: Be sure that you have changed the password to a new value, otherwise the next time you open the spreadsheet Excel will report errors (Unexpected Error), then when you access the list of VBA modules you will now see the names of the source modules but receive another error when trying to open forms/code/etc. To remedy this, go back to the VBA Project Properties and set the password to a new value. Save and re-open the Excel document and you should be good to go!

With my turn, this is built upon kaybee99's excellent answer which is built upon Đức Thanh Nguyễn's fantastic answer to allow this method to work with both 32/64 bit versions of Office.

Colin Pickard has an excellent answer, but there is one 'watch out' with this. There are instances (I haven't figured out the cause yet) where the total length of the "CMG=........GC=...." entry in the file is different from one excel file to the next. In some cases, this entry will be 137 bytes, and in others it will be 143 bytes. The 137 byte length is the odd one, and if this happens when you create your file with the '1234' password, just create another file, and it should jump to the 143 byte length.

This is not valid for Excel 2007/2010 files. The standard .xlsx file format is actually a .zip file containing numerous sub-folders with the formatting, layout, content, etc, stored as xml data. For an unprotected Excel 2007 file, you can just change the .xlsx extension to .zip, then open the zip file and look through all the xml data. It's very straightforward.

However, when you password protect an Excel 2007 file, the entire .zip (.xlsx) file is actually encrypted using RSA encryption. It is no longer possible to change the extension to .zip and browse the file contents.

It's simply a matter of changing the filename extension to .ZIP, unzipping the file, and using any basic Hex Editor (like XVI32) to "break" the existing password, which "confuses" Office so it prompts for a new password next time the file is opened.

Microsoft Office VBA Project passwords are not to be relied upon for security of any sensitive information. If security is important, use third-party encryption software.

In the event that your block of CMG="XXXX"\r\nDPB="XXXXX"\r\nGC="XXXXXX"in your 'known password' file is shorter than the existing block in the 'unknown password' file, pad your hex strings with trailing zeros to reach the correct length.

For Excel 2007 onward you need to change your file extension to .zipIn the archive there is a subfolder xl, in there you will find vbaProject.bin.Follow the step above with vbaProject.bin then save it back in the archive.Modify back your extension and voil! (meaning follow steps above)

Colin Pickard is mostly correct, but don't confuse the "password to open" protection for the entire file with the VBA password protection, which is completely different from the former and is the same for Office 2003 and 2007 (for Office 2007, rename the file to .zip and look for the vbaProject.bin inside the zip). And that technically the correct way to edit the file is to use a OLE compound document viewer like CFX to open up the correct stream. Of course, if you are just replacing bytes, the plain old binary editor may work.

If the file is a valid zip file (the first few bytes are 50 4B -- used in formats like .xlsm), then unzip the file and look for the subfile xl/vbaProject.bin. This is a CFB file just like the .xls files. Follow the instructions for the XLS format (applied to the subfile) and then just zip the contents.

Tom - I made a schoolboy error initially as I didn't watch the byte size and instead I copied and pasted from the "CMG" set up to the subsequent entry. This was two different text sizes between the two files, though, and I lost the VBA project just as Stewbob warned.

Using HxD, there is a counter tracking how much file you're selecting. Copy starting from CMG until the counter reads 8F (hex for 143) and likewise when pasting into the locked file - I ended up with twice the number of "..." at the end of the paste, which looked odd somehow and felt almost unnatural, but it worked.

I don't know if it is crucial, but I made sure I shut both the hex editor and excel down before reopening the file in Excel. I then had to go through the menus to open the VB Editor, into VBProject Properties and entered in the 'new' password to unlock the code.

ElcomSoft makes Advanced Office Password Breaker and Advanced Office Password Recovery products which may apply to this case, as long as the document was created in Office 2007 or prior.

The protection is a simple text comparison in Excel.Load Excel in your favourite debugger (Ollydbg being my tool of choice), find the code that does the comparison and fix it to always return true, this should let you access the macros.

3a8082e126