Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Using Password Recovery Software for MS Office

By Albert Von McZeally Albert Michael McZeally Alvin McZeally Alice McZeally

All of us want to protect ourselves. At home we have fire alarms, sprinklers and burglar alarms to keep our families safe. Car alarms and GPS for our cars keep our car and its occupants safe, and the rest of the time we are on the lookout for runaway cars, buses and those who would try to do us harm. For the same reasons we choose to protect our sensitive files from anyone who would want to use the contents for something untoward.

Adding a password to your files is something that is simple and easy to do, once you know where to look. For the best protection you will want a password that is at least 12 characters long and contains a combination of letter, numbers and symbols. This will ensure that a hacker cannot easily gain access to your files.

The important thing is that no matter what password you choose for your files, you need to keep track of it. Nothing is more aggravating than trying to get into an important file and realizing that you forgot the password. Although writing down your passwords seem like a bad idea, if you are prone to forgetfulness it may be necessary. Above all you want to make sure that your passwords never fall into the wrong hands.

Luckily there are programs out there which are designed to help you recover your files should you forget the password. These programs, referred to as password recovery software, work in a few different ways to figure out what password you used.

Initially the program will try to open your document using a combination of letters and number to see if it can guess the right password. This may work to gain entry into your files, but if you used a long or complicated password that includes a variety of characters and symbols it may not succeed.

Next the software will try different combinations of letters, numbers and symbols to get into the file. If your password was short and simple then it should have no problem getting in, but if you use long, complicated passwords the software will need some time, and there is no guarantee that it will be able to find the right combination.

Finally the password recovery software can simply disable the password protection on the file. This is where you want to be careful, as once the password protection is removed then your files are again at risk. Ensure you quickly protect them again once you have got in, and remember the password this time!

Password recover software can be used on many different types of files and even Windows itself, should you forget how to access your computer. Remember that you should only be using password recovery software to access your own files, as using it to open someone elses documents is against the law.

Password protecting your file can be a pain yes but think of the alternative. The next time you are password protecting your MS Office file which include: word, excel, outlook, powerpoint, etc you think if creating a separate secure password protected file to store all your passwords in. This way you can open them all with the simple use of one password. - 16069

About the Author: