MS Office 2007 passwords

Hello,

I am trying to find out how Office 2007 (Word and Excel) file open passwords are stored within documents protected by a File Open password.

Is password encrypted, what algorithm(s) were used, is it hashed etc?

 

If Microsoft freely shared this information it would defeat the purpose of having the password in the first place.

That said, there are products available to circumvent passwords at http://www.lostpassword.com/

 

Hey vpvguy, thanks for the info. Even I need to get through to a couple of my own files

 

They do share that information and this is not about closed software source or something.

 

They share this information for free? Please show me where because I would find it useful.

... and if you already know where they share this information for free, why were you asking about it in the first place?

 

I have found this

"Password to open" files use your password to encrypt the entire file using the RC4 stream cypher.

"Protected document" files use a 32bit hash that is stored inside the document itself.