As everyone knows Excel is a very useful and popular application and most of the regular computer users are using it. As this application is having high number of users so data security is needed. That is why excel is giving option to make your file password protected and Excel encrypts the password with strong encryption. You can set password at the file level and at the worksheet level. At file level you can restrict who can open and who can modify your excel file by giving open and modify password separately. And at the worksheet level you can protect specific cells or worksheets by putting a password for modification.
Excel Older Versions
Before Excel 2000 version Excel passwords were stored in unencrypted format and in file itself. But From Excel 2000, its started making hash (obscure) the password to give more security which make file more secure. You can't read hash password directly, only can get the length of the password and the hashed password can be located in a specific place. Because the password location in the file helps in to the recovery of password.
Password Removal
Most password recovery software or programs are not retrieving the passwords from Excel, They only looking for the hashes which is a passwords indicator and removing them by which you can open your file and reassign new passwords.
Actual Password Recovery
Password recovery requires "Brute Force Attack" Method which is using by very less number of software. Stellar Phoenix is one of them. Now you no need to send your file for a password recovery service, Just locate your file in your Excel Password Recovery Software and use the masking character & defining length option which will help software to do fast password recovery. Currently many password recovery services will ask you for two to three days for excel password recovery but Stellar Phoenix Excel Password Recovery Software will take considerable time.
Choosing Between Removal And Recovery
Password Recovery is always better than removal because recovery will give you exact password to access your data without any loss and corruption. The drawback to a removal service is privacy because anyone can remove password with removal and delete your data but recovery of password is not everyone's bite.