Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
blog.nig.gl
Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#2Officer, arrest this man, he removed copy protection that was useless and didn't do anything!
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#3And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access databases with Access PassView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html
While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to break it is worse than no security at all.
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#4And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access databases with Access PassView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to break it is worse than no security at all.
Excel does implement some 40-bit RC4 encryption method for workbooks that require a password to read (which you can brute force within a day), but the password to modify is trivial to remove.
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#5And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access databases with Access PassView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to break it is worse than no security at all.
The locks on most front doors are trivial to break with a bump key set: http://www.lockpicks.com/professionalbumpkeyset30-keysv30.as...
Some security is better than none, it deters crimes of opportunity and the casual thief. As with anything else if you want real security you need to do your research and make the proper investment.
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#6And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access databases with Access PassView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to break it is worse than no security at all.
The locks on most front doors are trivial to break with a bump key set: http://www.lockpicks.com/professionalbumpkeyset30-keysv30.as... Some security is better than none, it deters crimes of opportunity and the casual thief. As with anything else if you want real security you need to do your research and make the proper investment.
This protection, though, is less like the lock on a house, and more like the lock on a diary. You might not be able to break it right away, but you can just stuff it in your bag and break it later at your leisure. Crimes of opportunity are only dissuaded when the opportunity eventually ends.
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
The locks on most front doors are trivial to break with a bump key set: http://www.lockpicks.com/professionalbumpkeyset30-keysv30.as... Some security is better than none, it deters crimes of opportunity and the casual thief. As with anything else if you want real security you need to do your research and make the proper investment.
This protection, though, is less like the lock on a house, and more like the lock on a diary. You might not be able to break it right away, but you can just stuff it in your bag and break it later at your leisure. Crimes of opportunity are only dissuaded when the opportunity eventually ends.
Kudos for the comparison to breaking the lock on a diary. Those are pretty much pointless, as are these.
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#8And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access databases with Access PassView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to break it is worse than no security at all.
In the MDB format used in Access 2003 and older. BTW the user-level security and what was called "encryption" that was also supported in MDB format is no better. This encryption (which was based on 32-bit RC4) was so weak it was renamed "encoding" in Access 2003. All of these was ditched with the Access 2007 ACCDB format and replaced with real encryption based on CryptoAPI RC4 encryption (as termed is MS-OFFCRYPTO) introduced in Office XP (they did not adopt the new encryption introduced in Office 2007 file formats until Access 2010).
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#9And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access databases with Access PassView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to break it is worse than no security at all.
Excel does implement some 40-bit RC4 encryption method for workbooks that require a password to read (which you can brute force within a day), but the password to modify is trivial to remove.
By default in the old XLS file formats. Office XP introduced CryptoAPI RC4 encryption to improve security, unfortunately the UI for it was removed in Office 2007 and you will have to use the DefaultEncryption registry key to enable it now.
Re: Excel VBA Password Protection is useless
#10Surprise?