We are continuing the consolidation of our product line, now adding WordPerfect and Lotus office apps into Advanced Office Password Recovery. The tool can help experts unlock a host of digital document formats including Microsoft Office, OpenDocument, Hangul/Hancell, and many others without lengthy attacks.

What’s it all about?

For a long time, we used to offer many individual tools for breaking specific types of passwords and unlocking specific types of documents. We had a tool for decrypting legacy Microsoft Office documents and a tool for breaking 40-bit encryption, a tool for unlocking WordPerfect files and a tool for Lotus SmartSuite documents. That was a lot of tools and a lot of confusion.

Some time ago, we started work on consolidating our product range. The first step was merging Advanced Office Password Breaker and Advanced Office Password Recovery, integrating the former tool’s features into the latter. Today, we are making another important step: adding WordPerfect and Lotus support into Advanced Office Password Recovery.

What is it for?

Advanced Office Password Recovery is a tool for instantly removing password protection from office documents in a large number of formats. The tool can quickly unlock Microsoft Office documents (and quickly decrypt files saved as “compatible” with 40-bit encryption), recover passwords, unlock and decrypt files in files saved by MyOffice, Apple iWork, and Hangul/Hancell Office, and recover passwords for files in the OpenDocument standard. The tool exploits all known backdoors and tricks in the Office family for instant recovery and delivers the fastest attacks where the original password must be recovered. Low-level optimization combined with GPU acceleration and numerous smart attacks make Elcomsoft Advanced Office Password Recovery the fastest office recovery tool on the market.

The new functionality allows instantly unlocking password-protected files produced in IBM/Lotus SmartSuite, Supports Lotus Organizer, Lotus WordPro, Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus Approach and Freelance Graphics, as well as in Corel WordPerfect Office, WordPerfect, Paradox, and Corel WordPerfect Lightning.

WordPerfect: still no proper encryption in proprietary formats

WordPerfect is an office suite that was popular in the legal workflow. The current version of Corel-owned WordPerfect suite is WordPerfect Office 2021. WordPerfect documents were used by lawyers and courts for legal workflow. Today, WordPerfect offers several unique features targeted specifically at these audiences. For example, the Redaction feature can be used to “black out sensitive or confidential information and ensure that text cannot be retrieved or revealed”. The feature can also “search a document for words and phrases to hide, and automatically apply redaction. Redacted files can be saved to .pdf or .wpd formats, keeping your information safe and secure from onlookers.” (source).

Interestingly, the original (proprietary) file formats produced by WordPerfect apps still use a wishy-washy “password protection” approach. According to the official Knowledge Base article, users can use “original” and “advanced” protection. The “advanced” protection allows using case-sensitive passwords “for greater security”. Unsurprisingly, such passwords can be removed instantly or very quickly (in a matter of minutes) regardless of whether the “original” or “greater security” option was selected.

There are some nuances when breaking WordPerfect passwords depending on which version of the suite was used to produce the file, as well as the type of encryption (original or enhanced). In some cases, Advanced Office Password Recovery will decrypt the document without recovering the original password, while in some other cases the password must be recovered to decrypt the document. In either case, the process is nearly instant. For QuattroPro files, Advanced Office Password Recovery can find the original password but not decrypt the document (you’ll have to use the original QuattroPro app for that).

Lotus SmartSuite

Once a popular office suite, Lotus SmartSuite was discontinued some time in 2009.

All Lotus passwords can be removed instantly. Elcomsoft Advanced Office Password Recovery supports all tools, components and formats including Lotus Organizer, Lotus WordPro, Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus Approach and Freelance Graphics.

What about Lotus Notes? Do not let the similar name fool you: HCL Notes (formerly Lotus Notes) is a different product that belongs to a different family. HCL/Lotus Notes is and actively maintained product with proper encryption. Advanced Office Password Recovery cannot instantly remove strong protection; to decrypt HCL/Lotus Notes files, you’ll need to attack the original password with Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery.

More information

Read how the encryption in Microsoft Office apps evolved over the years:

• Microsoft Office 40-bit Encryption and Thunder Tables in Advanced Office Password Recovery
• Microsoft Office encryption evolution: from Office 97 to Office 2019

Conclusion

The Advanced Office Password Recovery update streamlines the recovery of office documents saved by popular contemporary and legacy apps. Instant unlock or guaranteed timeframe decryption is offered for legacy formats, while GPU-assisted password recovery is available for modern documents with strong encryption.