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Encryption is a way of coding the information in a file or e-mail message so that
if it is intercepted by a third party as it travels over a network it cannot be read.
Only the persons sending and receiving the information have the key and this makes it
unreadable to anyone except the intended persons.
EncOffice - Easy and Safe Encryption of Word and Excel Files
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By default Word and Excel documents are plaintext (not encrypted). If you open such a
document in a simple viewer, you are able to read most of the written text. On the
other hand, if it's encrypted you will only see a mix of strange characters. This is
illustrated by the next pictures.
On the left the original Word document in a simple viewer. On the right, the encrypted
version of the same document.
The original Word document.
Encryption detailsWord and Excel documents are
encrypted with RC4. RC4 is a stream cipher designed by Rivest for RSA Security.
It is a variable key-size stream cipher with byte-oriented operations. The
algorithm is based on the use of a random permutation. Analysis shows that the
period of the cipher is overwhelmingly likely to be greater than 10100. Eight to
sixteen machine operations are required per output byte, and the cipher can be
expected to run very quickly in software. Independent analysts have scrutinized
the algorithm and it is considered secure.
RC4 is used for file encryption in products such as RSA SecurPC and PDF. It is
also used for secure communications, as in the encryption of traffic to and from
secure web sites using the SSL protocol and for the protection of wireless networks (WiFi).
EncOffice: Easy and Safe Encryption of Word documents
- Adds a "Safe Encrypted" button to the Word toolbar
- Helps to choose a strong password
- Makes encrypted copy of the original document with extension ".enc.doc"
- You can open the encrypted document with a standard Word version
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