Possible to decrypt without the .pfx file?
April 10, 2013 1:44 PM Subscribe
We have an issue at work where we recently lost our sole network analyst. While this isn't a huge deal, because we got in a great replacement, in our attempts to find the original soft copies of the network diagrams and other configuration files he stored on a shared drive (OS is Windows server 2003), we found they were all encrypted with certificates. Is there any way to decrypt these things?
Contacting the old network analyst is not an option. He did not leave on good terms. He also managed to wipe all data from his laptops/desktop before he left, and due to an insane amount of growth in the company, those systems have been reimaged and reused. His departure was so messy that we figured we'd lost the soft copies and would have to rebuild, and honestly, the mess involved with pursuing any course of action against him for the data wipe seemed like it would be all headache and no benefit.
However - now we've found the files. Now I am hopeful we can recover them. We have full domain admin access, of course, as well as access to the account he used to encrypt them. I can pull up personal certificates for the user in question in mmc, through the snap in, but when I try to export, it asks for a .pfx file, and that is not available.
Obviously there are huge lessons learned over all of this. I've read several sites that state there is no way to recover these files without the personal certificate, but I just can't believe it without doing *some* due diligence and researching. So here I am. Hivemind, can you help? Do you know of any way, with the access we have, to decrypt these? Or barring that, to at least open them for viewing? The files in question vary - there are a handful of Visio diagrams, some configuration files (txt) and a few Powerpoint presentations and Word docs.
Contacting the old network analyst is not an option. He did not leave on good terms. He also managed to wipe all data from his laptops/desktop before he left, and due to an insane amount of growth in the company, those systems have been reimaged and reused. His departure was so messy that we figured we'd lost the soft copies and would have to rebuild, and honestly, the mess involved with pursuing any course of action against him for the data wipe seemed like it would be all headache and no benefit.
However - now we've found the files. Now I am hopeful we can recover them. We have full domain admin access, of course, as well as access to the account he used to encrypt them. I can pull up personal certificates for the user in question in mmc, through the snap in, but when I try to export, it asks for a .pfx file, and that is not available.
Obviously there are huge lessons learned over all of this. I've read several sites that state there is no way to recover these files without the personal certificate, but I just can't believe it without doing *some* due diligence and researching. So here I am. Hivemind, can you help? Do you know of any way, with the access we have, to decrypt these? Or barring that, to at least open them for viewing? The files in question vary - there are a handful of Visio diagrams, some configuration files (txt) and a few Powerpoint presentations and Word docs.
This post was deleted for the following reason: poster's request -- jessamyn
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