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MS Office Forum / Excel / New Users / December 2007password protection
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 > Hi all > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > 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 But there are techniques that will remove that project's password in seconds. And there are commercial programs that will break the password, too. > > Hi all > > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > Not sure if the stuff you have can be buried in the VBA code or not... > but it might be worth exploring  SignatureDave Peterson 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)... 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! > 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 [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > hacker... you need to just trust your clients to some degree (or find > some other form of medium to use)... SignatureDave Peterson > 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. SignatureCordially, Chip Pearson Microsoft MVP - Excel, 10 Years Pearson Software Consulting www.cpearson.com (email on the web site) > 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 [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > hacker... you need to just trust your clients to some degree (or find > some other form of medium to use)... > Hi all > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > 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 > 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 Password length, and mix of characters/numbers/punctuation don't matter a bit. See http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/removepwords.html > 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. > Password length, and mix of characters/numbers/punctuation don't matter > a bit. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >> characters/numbers >> it should take months for a normal pc to crack. thats fairly un-nerving, what do people do to protect excel sheets then, 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. > > Password length, and mix of characters/numbers/punctuation don't matter > > a bit. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > thats fairly un-nerving, what do people do to protect excel sheets then, SignatureDave Peterson 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 >thats fairly un-nerving, what do people do to protect excel sheets then, 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 > Here is info quoted from Chip Pearson's site.......................... > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > >>thats fairly un-nerving, what do people do to protect excel sheets then,
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