Using Security Features in Access

Encrypting a Database

If you want to protect your secured database from unauthorized access by someone who is using a disk editor or other utility program, you can encrypt the database. Encryption makes a database indecipherable, which protects it from unauthorized viewing or use. Encryption is particularly useful when you transmit a database electronically, or when your store it on floppy disk, tape, or compact disc.

Before you can encrypt or decrypt a Microsoft Access database, you must be either the owner of the database or a member of the Admins group of the workgroup information file that contains the accounts used to secure the database. You must also be able to open the database in exclusive mode. If the database is secured with user-level security, exclusive mode requires you to have the Open/Run and Open Exclusive permissions.

Note   Encrypting an unsecured database has no effect because anybody can open the database with Access or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and gain full access to all objects in the database.

The User-Level Security Wizard automatically encrypts your database. To encrypt or decrypt a database, start Access without opening a database, and then click the Encrypt/Decrypt Database command (Tools menu, Security submenu). When you encrypt a database by using the same file name as that of the original database, Access deletes the original unencrypted file after the encryption process is completed. If an error occurs during encryption, however, Access retains the original file.

Note   Encrypting a database slows its performance by up to 15 percent. Also, an encrypted database cannot be compressed by programs such as DriveSpace® or PKZIP.