Accessing the content of password-protected and encrypted documents saved as DOC/XLS files (as opposed to the newer DOCX/XLSX files) is often possible without time-consuming attacks regardless of the length of the password. Advanced Office Password Recovery enables experts quickly breaking the encryption of password-protected DOC and XLS files, which are Microsoft Word and Excel documents saved by modern versions of the app in the “compatibility” format. Organizations are still using the “compatible” Office 97/2000 formats for their document workflow.

Many Linux distributions including those used in off the shelf Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices have the ability to protect users’ data with one or more types of encryption. Full-disk and folder-based encryption options are commonly available, each with its own set of pros and contras. The new native ZFS encryption made available in OpenZFS 2.0 is designed to combine the benefits of full-disk and folder-based encryption without the associated drawbacks. In this article, we’ll compare the strengths and weaknesses of LUKS, eCryptFS and ZFS encryption.

The proliferation of always connected, increasingly smart devices had led to a dramatic increase in the amount of highly sensitive information stored in manufacturers’ cloud accounts. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the three major cloud providers who also develop their own hardware and OS ecosystems. In this report, we’ll see how these companies protect their users’ highly sensitive information compared to each other.

A year ago, we analyzed the encryption used in Synology NAS devices. We were somewhat disappointed by the company’s choice to rely on a single encryption layer with multiple functional restrictions and security reservations. Today we are publishing the results of our analysis of data encryption used in QNAP devices. Spoiler: it’s very, very different.

How many times have you seen the phrase: “Your password is securely encrypted”? More often than not, taking it at face value has little sense. Encryption means the data (such as the password) can be decrypted if you have the right key. Most passwords, however, cannot be decrypted since they weren’t encrypted in the first place. Instead, one might be able to recover them by running a lengthy attack. Let’s talk about the differences between encryption and hashing and discuss why some passwords are so much tougher to break.

LUKS encryption is widely used in various Linux distributions to protect disks and create encrypted containers. Being a platform-independent, open-source specification, LUKS can be viewed as an exemplary implementation of disk encryption. Offering the choice of multiple encryption algorithms, several modes of encryption and several hash functions to choose from, LUKS is one of the tougher disk encryption systems to break. Learn how to deal with LUKS encryption in Windows and how to break in with distributed password attacks.

If you are a Windows user and ever considered protecting your data with full-disk encryption, you have probably heard about BitLocker. BitLocker is Microsoft’s implementation of full-disk encryption that is built into many versions of Windows. You maybe even using BitLocker without realizing that you do – for example, if you have a Surface or a similar thin-and-light Windows device. At the same time, BitLocker encryption is not available by default on desktops if you are using the Home edition of Windows 10. Activating BitLocker on your system disk can be tricky and may not work right away even if your Windows edition supports it. In this article, we are offering an introduction to BitLocker encryption. We’ll detail the types of threats BitLocker can effectively protect your data against, and the type of threats against which BitLocker is useless. Finally, we’ll describe how to activate BitLocker on systems that don’t meet Microsoft’s hardware requirements, and evaluate whether it’s worth it or not security-wise.

TerraMaster is a relatively new company specializing in network attached storage and direct attached storage solutions. The majority of TerraMaster NAS solutions are ARM64 and Intel-based boxes aimed at the home and SOHO users. TerraMaster’s OS (TOS) is based on Linux. At this time, TOS 4.1 is the current version of the OS.

Why wasting time recovering passwords instead of just breaking in? Why can we crack some passwords but still have to recover the others? Not all types of protection are equal. There are multiple types of password protection, all having their legitimate use cases. In this article, we’ll explain the differences between the many types of password protection.

Home users and small offices are served by two major manufacturers of network attached storage devices (NAS): QNAP and Synology, with Western Digital being a distant third. All Qnap and Synology network attached storage models are advertised with support for hardware-accelerated AES encryption. Encrypted NAS devices can be a real roadblock on the way of forensic investigations. In this article, we’ll review the common encryption scenarios used in home and small office models of network attached storage devices made by Synology. (more…)