.docx password

Question

Hello,

I was wondering if there was a way to obtain access to a .docx file which I have forgotten the password for. It's a .docx file that was created after Word 2010 thus the .zip technique does not work.

Thank you so much.

Answer 1

Word's encryption of files is very, very strong. The only known method to break such password protection is brute force, i.e., trying increasingly complex candidates by combining dictionary words, upper and lower case characters, digits and symbols in orderly sequences until exhausting the various combinations.

For trivial candidates like "fox" or "qwerty" and words that appear in a dictionary, brute force will work. There are companies that break simple protection in a couple of hours and send you part of the document to prove they've accessed it. For a stipend, of course. Longer and more complicated passwords (DADsSilV3rDollar) would take a lifetime to be found.