How to crack a dBase file password?
I've inherited a bunch of dBase (.dbf) files from a legacy application, and I need to import the data into MS SQL or MS Access. I know these programs have built in "import" functions, but the dBase files are protected with a password, which nobody around here seems to know.
Anyone know of any way around the password, or of cracking the password?
(Edit: added C# tag bc that's the language I'll likely use for any programmatic solution)
Bounty awarded: I don't really have a good solution yet, but it's only 2 hours till the bounty closes, so I guess I should award it to the most useful answer thus far. And in that respect, I think the $75 paid solution is probably the most time and energy efficient, even if it doesn't give me the intellectual satisfaction of cracking it myself! :)
I'm going to leave the question "unanswered" for the meantime, until I see if any of the solutions actually work...
Answer
There is probably a way around the password, and there is certainly a way to brute force access if the password cannot be bypassed. One site offers the a tip about changing certain binary data within your file using a hex editor to disable password protection: http://www.antionline.com/archive/index.php/t-218086.html. Test that on a copy.
It is still not wholly uncommon to see instances where an application respects a security setting, but the security is not particularly relevant. Cases would include where the file has a flag designating protection, but the data is not actually encrypted. If the above doesn't solve your problem, open the file in a hex editor and see if information is recognizable in plain text.
If that doesn't work, I'd suggest grabbing a copy of John the Ripper and writing some bridge code to use the output of JTR's guesses as input for a dbase library's open calls.