Password in Word

[Marco Freccero]

Hi all,

Sometimes, I need to protect my documents in Word with a password; but it's
safe? What's kind of protection is guaranted?

Thanks!

 

[Fredrik Wahlgren]

Hi all,

Sometimes, I need to protect my documents in Word with a password; but it's
safe? What's kind of protection is guaranted?

Thanks!

What is it that you want to protect in your Word document? Do you just want
to protect them from any kind of change? Do you want to make sure they can't
be read without having to enter a password? Macro protectionYou can zip a
word using protection. No one will be able to read it unless they have the
password.

Here's a link that you may find useful: http://www.lostpassword.com There's
competing software as well. My understanding is that anyone can break a MS
Office password on a $100 budget and one week's worth of CPU time. Do your
own reserach but I think you will come to pretty much the same conclusion.

/ Fredrik

 

[John McGhie]

Marco:

No protection is ever "guaranteed" in this world. However, the password in
Word X and above is a 128-bit key, which is used to encrypt the entire text
of the document.

If you set the password properly, few people other than the CIA and the KGB
have the hardware needed to break it in a reasonable amount of time.

Ensure that the password you specify is at least 11 characters and contains
a mixture of upper- and lower-case, some numbers, and some punctuation or
other "special" characters. It's good practice to join two words together
(preferably, one in the middle of the other) to avoid "dictionary" attacks.

If you do all of that, your document is pretty safe: don't lose the
password, because if you do, chances are nobody in the world can help you.

Cheers

Hi all,

Sometimes, I need to protect my documents in Word with a password; but it's
safe? What's kind of protection is guaranted?

Thanks!

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410