#CyberMonday: How Hackers Hack a PDF File Password on Windows

Posted by E.L.E.X on July 11 2021 under Tech/Cybersecurity

Disclaimer:
Please be aware that hacking is illegal unless you have permission from the pdf owner and the parties involved(ADOBE). This post should be used as a tool to help the public understand how hackers can gain access to your pdf file. ELEX BLOG shall not be held responsible if any criminal charges are brought against any person who misuses the information on this website to violate the law.

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What if you have an old password-protected PDF file that you need and whose password you have forgotten? Is there any way to hack or crack the pdf file password and get access to the pdf file. Well, no need to worry as there are a few ways to decrypt the PDF file password and get access to the file. In this article, we will discuss various methods to crack pdf passwords and how to access the files. Do note you should not use this method for anything illegal and for anything that you do not have permission to do.

Now to avoid confusion between unlocking a pdf and cracking a pdf password, here are two main differences in pdf password cracking.

Unlocking PDF

Unlocking a PDF is the process of removing the password protection from the PDF file. This requires you to know the previous password cause that is how the protection is set up. If you know the password then you can easily unlock the PDF.

This is simple to do and will not be covered in this tutorial. We are assuming you do not know the password thus we will show you how to crack a pdf password.

Cracking PDF

Cracking or hacking a pdf password refers to the process of trial and error to guess the correct password so that you can recover it directly without knowing the actual password.

We mostly use brute force and dictionary attacks to break such passwords. Having a high-end system helps since this process requires a lot of computing power.

Cracking a PDF Password

Step 1: Download a good pdf cracking software:

Pdf password recovery is a good option.

Step 2: Install The pdf password recovery tool.

Step 3: Now open the application to crack the pdf file password.

Click on the add pdf file option in the upper left corner

crack the pdf file password using PDF Password Recover PRO

Step 4: Select the type of attack you want to use.

You can use:

Dictionary attack: A dictionary attack is a type of brute force attack technique which is used for cracking password by trying to guess the password key or passphrase by trying all the possible combinations of password from a dictionary file. This is one of the fastest methods to crack passwords for a pdf file.

Mask attack: Mask attacks are brute-force attacks where you know some of the parameters of the password so that you can customize exactly how the brute force method of cracking password works. You can select the parameters as shown below.

crack the pdf file password using Mask Attack

Bruteforce attack: A Brute Force Attack is the simplest form of cracking passwords where you keep trying all the possible combinations to crack passwords. The amount of time required is quite high and thus can take a very long time and is not a practical method to crack pdf passwords.

Step 5: Setup the parameters for the attack as needed. You can refer to the image below.

Step 6: Start cracking the pdf password.

You can now see the password once it’s cracked. This will work only if the password is simple and short enough to crack.

Otherwise, it can take days to crack a password that is longer than 8 characters and not part of the English lexicon.

Hopefully, you will be able to recover your file password easily and change it. Make sure to keep a memorable and strong password so that others cannot maliciously hack your file.

I hope this article has been informative for you and I thank you for reading. If you have any questions do let us know in the comment section below. This is also one of the ways hackers use to crack pdf file passwords.

Happy Hacking!

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