Password-protected .rar files

Has anyone here ever actually wrestled with protected .rar files? I’m talking about those ones where a password has been slapped on them, making extraction an absolute impossibility without the right credentials.

Naturally, I’ve already wasted my time messing around with tools like Passware and its various clones, but the real headache is that WinZip uses such incredibly beefy encryption that these recovery programs just crawl along at a snail's pace. It’s frankly ridiculous; the software manages to check maybe ten or fifteen passwords every single second, so when you look at the "time left" estimate, it’ll tell you something absurd like 7y 210d 16h... to complete, or if you're lucky, it just gives up and says "too many."

So, my actual question is whether anyone out there knows of a faster, more efficient way to crack a lost or forgotten password on a .rar file? Or perhaps someone knows of a specific program that can somehow bypass the password prompt entirely during extraction, or maybe even lets you just swap the old password for a new one of your choosing... something along those lines?

Ten to fifteen passwords per second feels low to me. I think you might have miscalculated somewhere; it shouldn't take that long. Actually, on an older machine, it could take quite a while—in my experience, it once took up to 45 or 50 days when dealing with a full set of characters, numbers, and symbols.
A much easier way is to just guess the password 🙂
For instance, if you downloaded a WinZip file from a torrent site, try using the tracker's name or the full URL of the website where you grabbed it, and so on...

No, I didn't mix things up... the machine is about five years old, though it’s in pretty great shape—well, more or less, mostly. But that isn't really the point here since we're talking about WinZip 10.0; back when you were dealing with WinZip 3.0 through 2.8, you could hammer through thousands of passwords every single second, whereas the versions from 2.9 to 3.x utilize much beefier encryption, which tanks the speed down to just a handful of passwords per second. At that point, a brute-force attack is basically a fool's errand, leaving a dictionary attack as your only remotely useful option. Then there's the whole issue with .zip archives where traditional PKWARE encryption lets you blast through about 15 million passwords a second, yet once you hit that newer "Advanced encryption technology" found in WinZip 9.0 through 10, that speed plummets to a measly few hundred passwords per second.

It totally makes sense that it took you 45 to 50 days if you set a password that was only 5 or 6 characters long, but honestly, what happens when someone uses 15 or 20 characters, or a complex mix of letters, numbers, and symbols?

That was exactly my situation... downloaded a RAR file from a torrent, and naturally, my first instinct was to try guessing the password, which obviously went nowhere. After wasting a chunk of time messing around with a program like that, I just gave up, which is why I'm asking if anyone actually knows of a little utility that can just bypass the password entirely or swap it out for a new one, just in case I run into this exact headache again. Besides, 40 to 50 days is a massive amount of time, especially if you've downloaded a 30 MB .rar file; you're probably not going to sit around waiting for nearly two months when you could just grab the same file from a different source, right?
It would be absolutely fantastic to have a tool that just sidesteps the security, so next time you stumble upon a protected file you can just think, "...not this again..." then click, click, and boom—the password is gone, particularly when you're dealing with massive files. 😉

Just install Unix and simply unpack that zip or rar file without any password, then move it over to macOS 😉

Unknown - could you maybe explain this part a little bit more?

Unknown said:Just install Unix and you can easily unpack any zip or rar file without needing a password before moving it back over to macOS😉

Oh, sure, please elaborate on that logic because I’m clearly missing something here—what on earth does using Unix have to do with bypassing a password in WinRAR ..?!?

Since I spend most of my time working on Unix, I occasionally find myself downloading a program designed for macOS just to see if it works. One time, I grabbed this ZIP file that was supposedly password-protected. I just pulled up the terminal, typed in the unzip command, and—get this—it unpacked perfectly without asking me for a single thing! Not one prompt for a password. I moved the files over to my macOS machine, and everything ran flawlessly. I’m starting to wonder if the same kind of bypass happens with WinZip 😉
.
It feels like the same deal with ripping CDs that have DRM protection; software like Burn is able to copy them without any issues, acting like the protection isn't even there 😉

Unknown said:...so I had this zip file that was supposedly password protected, right? But then I just hopped into the terminal, typed unzip filename, and boom—it just unpacked everything without ever even asking me for a password...

Personally, I use Fedora whenever I have some downtime, though I gotta admit, I’ve never really run into a situation where you could just bypass a password on a protected file like that🤔

And hey, everyone knows DRM is supposed to be "no big deal" when you're running Unix... 🙂

rowdytrucker27 said:Personally, I use Fedora in my downtime, but I have to admit, I haven't noticed any way to unzip password-protected files without actually having the password.🤔

It looks like the specific zip file I was messing with was Norton SE.zip. It didn't ask me for a thing! And believe me, it was definitely protected because I grabbed it from some sketchy foreign forum and I specifically knew the password beforehand.😉

It was a .zip file, yeah, but I already touched on the massive difference between zip and rar archives. Even though zip encryption algorithms are significantly weaker, it’s clearly possible to extract them under Unix without the system ever asking for a password. Now, whether the same thing applies to rar archives... I honestly have no clue. Go ahead and try extracting a password-protected .rar file the same way just so we can see if the result is identical.

Even if it does work, there is almost zero chance I'm installing Unix just to deal with one single protected rar file, regardless of whether it bypasses the password prompt or not...
But thanks anyway for the heads-up.. 😉

Unknown said:I think the zip file I used to get it working was actually Norton SE.zip. It didn't ask me for anything, but I'm pretty sure it was protected because I grabbed it from this random forum overseas and I already knew the password 😉

Look, I'm not saying you're wrong! I'm just saying it didn't happen to me. Maybe when I get home later, if it pops into my head, I'll give it a shot. But hey, even if it doesn't work for me, that doesn't mean what you're saying isn't true, right? 😉

Unknown said:Just install Unix and you can easily unpack a zip or rar file without needing any password, then just move it back over to macOS 😉

...fine, I guess that's news to me too...! 😉 ...but there might be a grain of truth in there... I know that encrypted messages can sometimes be opened without decryption on Unix; you just get a little notification saying "the message is encrypted"... you hit OK and everything works like a charm... 👍 ...man, I can only imagine how this technology will evolve over the years. It’s pretty obvious that this is one massive oversight in the computer industry... 🤣

Honestly, you can just grab a Knoppix disc, boot the whole system right from the CD, unpack everything you need, and then
just pop the disc out.
Though, if you're looking for something a bit less heavy-duty, there are plenty of lighter Linux distros out there too.