Password Protection Strength

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Guest

When a Microsoft Word document is password-protected, what type of encryption
is used? What type of encryption strength are we talking about, in other
words? How secure is this document? Can it be sent by e-mail (as an
attachment) without worrying about security issues?

Thanks for all input!
 
husky86 said:
When a Microsoft Word document is password-protected, what type of encryption
is used? What type of encryption strength are we talking about, in other
words? How secure is this document? Can it be sent by e-mail (as an
attachment) without worrying about security issues?

Thanks for all input!
Click to expand...

If you're concerned about security, I would not rely on password
protecting Word files since they can usually be brute-forced in a couple
of days (in fact our IT department does it sometimes when people forget
passwords).

Instead, encrypt them with a 3rd party utility like PGP:

http://www.pgpi.com

Jonathan
 
It depends on the version of Word. Word 97 and above use fairly strong
encryption, but in Word 2002 and 2003 (and perhaps 2003 as well), the Tools
| Options | Security tab (Advanced...) allows you to select extremely strong
encryption. In all these cases, the password is not embedded in the text
somewhere where it can be found with a hex editor; instead, the password is
used as a key to "scramble" the document contents, so that they are just
garbage when viewed in a hex editor.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Whoops! That should have been "(and perhaps 2000 as well)," but it appears
that the stronger encryptions were introduced in Office XP.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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