Access97 Encryption Information

[Kevin Austen]

Question 1 - I was wondering if you knew what type of
encryption is used by MS Access 97?

Question 2 - Do you know how it works, algorithm
information etc?

For Example:

Some of the possible encryption types you might find in
the Encryption Type dialog are: • Weak Encryption (XOR)
Not recommended, provided for legacy files only • Office
97/2000 Compatible Not recommended, provided for legacy
files only • RC4, Microsoft Base Cryptographic Provider
v1.0 • RC4, Microsoft Base DSS and Diffie-Hellman
Cryptographic Provider • RC4, Microsoft DH SChannel
Cryptographic Provider • RC4, Microsoft Enhanced
Cryptographic Provider v1.0 • RC4, Microsoft Enhanced DSS
and Diffie-Hellman Cryptographic Provider • RC4, Microsoft
Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider (Prototype) •
RC4, Microsoft RSA SChannel Cryptographic Provider • RC4,
Microsoft Strong Cryptographic Provider

I would be forever grateful if you would kindly replied.

 

[Kevin Austen]

I thought someone may be able to help but no replies, any
how I have found out the following, and have published
this to help other people....

Access97 (Jet) uses an RSA - (Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman -
the names of the inventors of the algorithm) based
encryption algorithm with a key based on your workgroup ID
to encrypt the database.

Access uses RSA's RC4 encryption technology to scramble
the database. RC4 is an industry-standard encryption
algorithm. Access uses a random key when encoding a
database, and codes and decodes in 2k page chunks.

Encryption has two negative side effects. First, it
reduces database performance (according to Microsoft
estimates) by approximately 10 to 15 percent. Second, it
makes the database uncompressible by programs such as
PKZip, LHA, Stacker and DriveSpace. (You won't be
prevented from compressing the database, but the
compression step won't significantly reduce the size.)