title: Are non-characters allowed in MS Access DB password?
body: <p>I was tasked with retrieving lost password to MS Access database that comes with a piece of software.</p>
  
  <p>I tried a tool for that but returned string looks corrupted including "characters" like: †‡Δ and others that don't seam to be actual characters at all. However the db file is not corrupted because the software that comes with it has no problem getting data from that db.</p>
  
  <p>I then tried injecting into the app at runtime after it loaded and established connection to db. The app uses Enterprise Library so in my injected payload I call:</p>
  
  <pre><code>new DatabaseConfigurationView(ConfigurationManager.GetCurrentContext())
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and from it I managed to get the db password as it is in app memory and I know (from analyzing decompiled code) it's the same one being used by app to successfully pull data from db. Turns out it's the same corrupt looking string the tool was giving me.</p>
  
  <p>If I try to open the db with Microsoft Access app (Office) the password window won't even accept the string. Ctrl+v is ignored but works when pasting string of valid characters.</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible that this string including non-characters is the actual password or am I missing something here?</p>
  
  <p>Bear in mind I have no previous experience with Enterprise Library or Access databases.</p>