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Microsoft Office 2007 employs a significantly improved password protection system. The following applications can set the file opening password that is used to encrypt a document: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access.

 

These programs use AES encryption and SHA-1 hashing. The password verification is made deliberately slow, which allows recovering only short and simple passwords. Microsoft Office 2010 doubled the number of SHA-1 hash iterations, making the recovery speed two times slower.

 

Office 2013 replaces SHA-1 hashing with SHA-512, which is a more complex and slower hash algorithm.

 

We recommend using GPU acceleration to attack Office 2007+ passwords. The use of modern graphic cards significantly increases the speed of attacks. For breaking longer and more complex passwords, consider distributed attacks with Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery.