Re: Microsoft Access 97 Stores Database Password as Plaintext

[milton () ISOMEDIA COM (Stephen M. Milton)]

The following text was posted to USENET, and indexed on a Russian cypherpunk
site.  I found it when I was doing some work with Access 97 databses.  I
think you will agree that this particular "feature" makes the linked
database password issue moot.

> Subject:      Re: MS Access 2.0
> From:         adam () homeport org (Adam Shostack)
> Date:         1998/06/23
> Message-ID:   <199806231244.IAA04637 () homeport org>
> Newsgroups:   ailab.coderpunks
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>
>        Part of doing research is to ensure you're not re-inventing
> the wheel before you start doing hard work.  I'm perfectly happy to
> have Mike ask questions about this stuff; the answers are often
> enlightening to the rest of us.
>
>   Anyway, Access97 passwords are stored in the 13 bytes from offset
> 0x42 in a .mdb file.  Do a bitwise XOR with 0x86, 0xFB, 0xEC, 0x37,
> 0x5D, 0x44, 0x9C, 0xFA, 0xC6, 0x5E, 0x28, 0xE6, 0x13 to recover the
> plaintext.  I think that if the first byte is 0x86, the password is
> not checked.
>
> Adam

Stephen M. Milton
System Administrator
ISOMEDIA, Inc.