Unfortunately, in spite of the best interests of the creator of the PDF document to secure the text or other content contained in the file, password protected PDFs can easily be cracked and the document security features removed. A simple search on any major search engine will reveal numerous PDF password removal applications and workarounds that are easily and freely available online. These can be used in unlocking almost any secure PDF for unauthorized edits, sharing, and use with optical character recognition software.
A large number of companies continue to employ reusable, standard passwords to password protect PDF files. Unsurprisingly, these same standard passwords are also used in various other business applications, intranets and extranets, e-mail, CRM and other business programs within the organization. Maintaining confidential information or sensitive data in PDF documents with reusable or standard passwords is highly insecure and risky. This is because passwords can easily be hacked, stolen or guessed (the majority of passwords are weak and the most popular password is 123456); and once the password has been compromised, the PDF document is no longer secure.
In most cases, the document owner is rarely aware that their passwords have been compromised and if the hacker is smart, the fact that the attack has taken place also might never be discovered. For organizations and companies, this means that sensitive business data can be easily duplicated, edited, deleted or even read by unauthorized sources without anyone even knowing a security breach has occurred.
In spite of technological advancements and education surrounding the importance of strong passwords for confidential business information, a large number of companies still have a poor understanding of how easy it is for anybody outside the system to subtly hack into their data. Standard password-based PDF documents are often reused with the same credentials and in most cases these credentials are stored in a password database that is typically maintained on the company’s system. Hence the password to the document can either be acquired by snooping on the user’s network connection, hacking the system’s password file, keyboard tapping or keystroke capturing, stealth infection, searching online for a simple password removing application, or simply by guessing the password or using dictionary attacks. There are a number of powerful password cracking applications that are able to decrypt any password within seconds or minutes through a standard computer – the shorter the password the quicker it is to crack.