Parse excel spreadsheet with password

Ruby
1

I have done quite a lot of diggings, but all I found were examples and
instructions about opening/reading simple xls files.

I need to open and read data from encrypted excel spreadsheets. Does
anyone know how to do that?

cheers :slight_smile:

2

— lovelymmx [email protected] wrote:

I have done quite a lot of diggings, but all I found
were examples and
instructions about opening/reading simple xls files.

I need to open and read data from encrypted excel
spreadsheets. Does
anyone know how to do that?

From Microsoft’s web site:

"Caution If a user assigns password protection to a
workbook and then forgets the password, it is
impossible to perform the following activities:

* Open the workbook.
* Gain access to the workbook's data from another

workbook through a link.
* Remove protection from the workbook.
* Recover data from the workbook."

I believe you need a password cracking utility, or you
need to make use of a password cracking service
(http://www.passwordbusters.com). Recent MSOffice
versions apparently use 40-bit RC4 encryption.

You can write your own common-password cracking
utility. If you’re adventurous and have a
supercomputer handy, you can write a brute force
decryption utility. Maybe, someday that will be a
ruby quiz … no way to test, though :slight_smile:

3

Todd B. wrote:

I believe you need a password cracking utility, or you
need to make use of a password cracking service
(http://www.passwordbusters.com). Recent MSOffice
versions apparently use 40-bit RC4 encryption.

You can write your own common-password cracking
utility. If you’re adventurous and have a
supercomputer handy, you can write a brute force
decryption utility. Maybe, someday that will be a
ruby quiz … no way to test, though :slight_smile:

thanks, but what i need is not a password cracker.
I have already found some useful reference on msdn.

password could be passed as a parameter into the Workbooks.Open method
:slight_smile:

4

If your Excel file is password protected but you want to read existing
data then this is possible by removing password by using effective third
party tool. eSoftTools Excel password unlocker software is the best
application to remove password from Workbook, Word file and Access file
too. Software is able to unlock .xls file, .xlsx file, .xla file, .xltm
file and so on…

Read More

5

— Guanliang L. [email protected] wrote:

thanks, but what i need is not a password cracker.
I have already found some useful reference on msdn.

password could be passed as a parameter into the
Workbooks.Open method
:slight_smile:

Yeah, I misunderstood you. My reading comprehension
skills have gone downhill recently.