Secure Excel

[miketombs]

Hi,

I'm trying to find a way to secure excel spreadshets so they can't be copied, modified etc. Apart from timebombs - which can be circumvented and sound a bit nasty anyway - are there any ways to do that? I came across an outfit called Praetorians and a product called Secure Calc - see http://www.praetorians.eu/en/excel-secure-calc/excel-business.htm - but they haven't responded to any emails so I presume they either don't actually exist anymore or the product doesn't work.

[Leo-InstallingIT]

Hi

Do you actually want to protect all the data within the spreadsheet, or just formulas etc?

Many Thanks

Leo

[miketombs]

I want to be able to protect formulae, prevent the spreadsheet being copied and preferably have a timelimit after which it can no longer be updated. The 'Praetorian' product seems ideal, but if they can't be contacted it's not much use :(

[Subbynet]

Maybe Lockxls http://www.lockxls.com

[miketombs]

Thanks - I'll give it a try. It didn't come up with anything I googled but it looks as if it will do exactly what I want.

[FireFleur]

There is no real way of doing this if you are after 100% security, and the code will reside or run locally.

Some DRM hardware may be able to pull this off in the future, but still it is measurable.

So, I suppose the question is what are you trying to achieve?

If you just want to make it illegal for someone to modify the code, set that out in a license. If you really need to keep it secure then run it remotely, and control the input and access to the system.

[computer storm]

Hi,

I'm trying to find a way to secure excel spreadshets so they can't be copied, modified etc. Apart from timebombs - which can be circumvented and sound a bit nasty anyway - are there any ways to do that? I came across an outfit called Praetorians and a product called Secure Calc - see http://www.praetorians.eu/en/excel-secure-calc/excel-business.htm - but they haven't responded to any emails so I presume they either don't actually exist anymore or the product doesn't work.

Excel comes with a built in protection, you can also use Rights Management this will protect your document should you want to send it to anyone else. This is free as a trial version from Microsoft.

[miketombs]

Thanks for the pointer to IRM - it could well be useful. The normal inbuilt Excel protection is soooooooo easy to bypass it's only use is to prevent accidental changes being made.The LockXLS suggestion above seems ideal for what I want.