password protection

[cw]

Hi all

is there any software/ technique i can use that will password protect excel
2003 files that cannot be hacked.

we have software for forgotten passwords recovery (which is great for the
right reasons and very bad for others.)

but if we dont want our clients to be able to get at our excel formulas on
the hidden sheets is there anything out there that will provide better
protection than just the usual password that in built to office.


Thanks
CW

 

[hall.jeff]

Hi all

is there any software/ technique i can use that will password protect excel
2003 files that cannot be hacked.

we have software for forgotten passwords recovery (which is great for the
right reasons and very bad for others.)

but if we dont want our clients to be able to get at our excel formulas on
the hidden sheets is there anything out there that will provide better
protection than just the usual password that in built to office.

Thanks
CW

Nope, Excel is quite hackable...

I don't know how useful this is, but you can "hide" things in the VBA
code if there's proprietary stuff and the VBA quite is incredibly
secure because there's no programmatic interface to the VBA password
entry (i.e. you can't even write a macro to unprotect the VBA code...
you have to ALWAYS do it by hand)

Not sure if the stuff you have can be buried in the VBA code or not...
but it might be worth exploring

 

[Dave Peterson]

But there are techniques that will remove that project's password in seconds.
And there are commercial programs that will break the password, too.

 

[hall.jeff]

I'm not aware of anything that'll let you hack into the VBA project,
although it doesn't surprise me too much (I'd be curious how it's done
since, as I said, there's no programmatic interface to the vba code
password)

The bottom line is that Excel is not secure from a determined
hacker... you need to just trust your clients to some degree (or find
some other form of medium to use)...

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't like publicizing this kind of thing. Some people make their living
creating addins/workbooks and I don't think it's right to share how to break
into them.

A compiled COM addin may be secure enough to foil the rest of the world--it
would foil me!

 

[Chip Pearson]

I'm not aware of anything that'll let you hack into the VBA project,

although it doesn't surprise me too much

I use VBAKey from PassWare (about $40) and it will crack a VBProject
password in seconds. It doesn't necessarily provide you with the actual
password used, but provides a password that will work.

I also have XLKey for Excel workbook/worksheet passwords.

--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel, 10 Years
Pearson Software Consulting
www.cpearson.com
(email on the web site)

 

[cw]

Hi all

is there any software/ technique i can use that will password protect
excel 2003 files that cannot be hacked.

we have software for forgotten passwords recovery (which is great for the
right reasons and very bad for others.)

but if we dont want our clients to be able to get at our excel formulas on
the hidden sheets is there anything out there that will provide better
protection than just the usual password that in built to office.


Thanks
CW

Thanks Guys

I hope you didnt get the wrong end of the stick there, i dont want to hack
anything i just want to make sure my clients cant either.

thanks for you help

http://www.excelsentry.com/file_downloads/demo.html

i did find excel sentry and wondered if any one has any thoughts on this or
know of any similar software

 

[cw]

http://www.excelsentry.com/file_downloads/demo.html

i did find excel sentry and wondered if any one has any thoughts on this
or know of any similar software

Just another question on these Excel hacking 'tools' are they all brute
force or are some more sophisticated

i only ask as if have a password with 15 chars in mixed characters/numbers
it should take months for a normal pc to crack.


Thanks
CW

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Password length, and mix of characters/numbers/punctuation don't matter
a bit.

See

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/removepwords.html

 

[cw]

Password length, and mix of characters/numbers/punctuation don't matter
a bit.

See

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/removepwords.html

thats fairly un-nerving, what do people do to protect excel sheets then,

 

[Dave Peterson]

They use Tools|Protection|Protect sheet.

But they realize that this Excel's worksheet protection is not meant to protect
any intellectual property. It's to help protect users from writing over
formulas and other information that shouldn't be changed.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Here is info quoted from Chip Pearson's site..........................

As I tell all of my commercial clients, password protection, or protection of
any sort, should be viewed as a method to keep the honest user from accidentally
changing or deleting something he shouldn't. The security is by no means
sufficient to protect proprietary data or code or code with intellectual
property value. The same goes for any sort of registry based key storage or
settings. A skilled user can easily run RegEdit and see the values in the
registry. The same hold true for macro based security. Not only can the VBA
password be easily broken, but nearly all macro based security relies on macros
being enabled in the first place and that the Application's EnableEvents setting
is True. It is a one-liner to circumvent either of those two restrictions.
The bottom line is that if you have valuable code and you need more than "honest
person" security, then VBA is not sufficient. You should create a COM Add-In in
VB6 or a Shared Add-In or an Excel Workbook in VB.NET and Visual Studio Tools
For Office.

End quote................................


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[cw]

Thanks Guys

I will look into the COM addins and the like

are there any that people can recommend that available to buy/download ???

CW