Cracking a Password-Protected PDF File
Explore how to crack password-protected PDF documents using a brute force technique implemented in Python with the Pikepdf library. Understand the process of generating password combinations, handling encrypted files, and testing password cracking utilities. This lesson helps you gain practical skills in PDF security testing and reveals the risks of weak passwords in PDF protection.
Introduction
Password-protected PDF documents can be cracked with little effort. Surfing the web unveils countless applications for PDFs password removal.
Common applications like DrPDF, GuaPDF, PDFCrack or ElcomSoft can be used to unlock secured PDF documents. However, these applications are mostly paid, or in certain circumstances, may disclose the PDF document confidential information.
Methods for PDF password recovery
A user password can be broken either with a dictionary attack, or a brute force attack. Let’s describe these two modes:
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Dictionary attack: It is a variant of the brute force technique, except that attackers go through a list of common words and sentences. Numerous users continue to utilize reusable, ...