Recovering Lost Passwords on your Computer

By Alan on April 22, 2011 in Email, MS Outlook, Office, Security, System Rescue

As an IT support person I am frequently asked to recover lost passwords – more often than you might think.

People often forget their own passwords – especially when they chose them long ago
A friend set up their computer for them and didn’t tell them a password
They were given a work computer for home use which requires a password to get into it
The owner of the computer has died or is in hospital – see Passing on Wills…and Passwords – WSJ.com
I do not condone the use of these tools for stealing personal information, for spying on people, or for any other unethical or illegal activity!

This is a list of Password resources – which I plan to expand over time

Bios Password
Windows User Account Password
Email – Outlook/Outlook Express/Windows Mail Password
Windows Operating System Key
Browser Passwords
Microsoft Office Key
Router & Wireless Passwords
Other Password Recovery Tools
Choosing Secure Passwords

1.Bios Password

The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) controls a number of the computer’s fundamental settings and keeps the date correct. If the BIOS is password protected you’ll be asked for a log-on password when you first start the computer.

If you don’t know this, the easiest way to reset the BIOS is to remove the CMOS battery

The battery is a CR2032 and is located on the motherboard

Removing the CMOS battery like the one will cause the system to loose all CMOS settings including the password.

See here http://www.technibble.com/how-to-bypass-or-remove-a-bios-password/ for a fuller explanation

To do this locate and remove the CMOS battery on the motherboard for at least five-minutes. After this has been done put the battery back into the computer and turn it back on.

Locating the CMOS battery on a laptop: http://www.laptopparts101.com/cmos-rtc-battery/

2.Windows User Account Password

The most effective way of finding a User Account Password is with Ophcrack which will take minutes to discover most passwords – this is useful if you want to discover the password without resetting it.

3. Email – Outlook/Outlook Express/Windows Mail Password

This is a very simple password revealer which works on most email pgrograms

password_revealer

Password Revealer
Mail PassView recovers the passwords of the following email programs: Windows Live Mail, Windows Mail, Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook 2000 (POP3 and SMTP Accounts only), Microsoft Outlook 2002/2003 (POP3, IMAP, HTTP and SMTP Accounts), IncrediMail, Eudora, Netscape Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird,
Mail PassView can also recover the passwords of Web-based email accounts (HotMail, Yahoo!, Gmail), if you use the associated programs of these accounts.
PstPassword – Recovers lost password of Outlook PST file.

4. Windows Operating System Key

Windows and Office Key Finder (and reset Computer registered user)

Load Hive option – allows you to load the registry hive of another Windows installation. To use, put the hard drive in a working machine (must also be Windows 2000, XP or Vista) or use Windows PE (not tested, should work) and click Load Hive. Then point it to the dead Windows install. If you’re using Windows Vista, Administrator rights are required for this feature. You may have to right click on the Keyfinder and run as Administrator.

5. Microsoft Office Key

6. Browser Passwords

WebBrowserPassView is a password recovery tool that reveals the passwords stored by the following Web browsers: Internet Explorer (Version 4.0 – 8.0), Mozilla Firefox (All Versions), Google Chrome, and Opera. This tool can be used to recover your lost/forgotten password of any Website, including popular Web sites, like Facebook, Yahoo, Google, and GMail, as long as the password is stored by your Web Browser. After retrieving your lost passwords, you can save them into text/html/csv/xml file, by using the ‘Save Selected Items’ option (Ctrl+S).
PasswordFox is a small password recovery tool for Windows that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Mozilla Firefox Web browser. By default, PasswordFox displays the passwords stored in your current profile, but you can easily select to watch the passwords of any other Firefox profile. For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Record Index, Web Site, User Name, Password, User Name Field, Password Field, and the Signons filename.
ChromePass is a small password recovery tool for Windows that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Google Chrome Web browser. For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Origin URL, Action URL, User Name Field, Password Field, User Name, Password, and Created Time. You can select one or more items and then save them into text/html/xml file or copy them to the clipboard.
IE PassView IE PassView is a small utility that reveals the passwords stored by Internet Explorer browser. It supports the new Internet Explorer 7.0 and 8.0, as well as older versions of Internet explorer, v4.0 – v6.0
OperaPassView is a small password recovery tool that decrypts the content of the Opera Web browser password file (wand.dat) and displays the list of all Web site passwords stored in this file. You can easily select one or more passwords in the OperaPassView window, and then copy the passwords list to the clipboard and save it into text/html/csv/xml file.
Transferring your Firefox profile – passwords, bookmarks & settings – to a new PC

7. Router & Wireless Passwords

List of Default Router Passwords
RouterPassView Windows utility that can recover lost passwords from configuration file saved by a router. This utility only works if your router save the configuration file in a format that RouterPassView can detect and decript.
WirelessKeyView recovers all wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer by the ‘Wireless Zero Configuration’ service of Windows XP and by the ‘WLAN AutoConfig’ service of Windows 7 and Windows Vista. It allows you to easily save all keys to text/html/xml file, or copy a single key to the clipboard.
See also DNS-Changer Trojan Virus Hijacks Your Router! – how a virus can guess your router password and send you spam!

8. Other Password Recovery Tools

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html – amazing range of password recovery tools. These tools are often detected as Trojans or Viruses by security software, but these reports are often False Positives – see Antivirus “False Positive” Problems

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