Spreadsheet security

[Keith]

Hi. New poster here with a question. To make a long story short my neighbor ended up with a copy of my .xls spreadsheet, that is personal financial information, on HIS computer. I have since added a password on my computer to access this spreadsheet. My question (questions) is: since he has my spreadsheet on his computer does my password on my computer prevent him for opening the spreadsheet and viewing It or editing it?
Thanks.

 

[johnb35]

How did he get a copy of it? Once you have assigned a password to the actual file, then he can't access it without the password.

 

[beers]

If he already has the file then he already has the information and there isn't too much you can do at this point. How exactly was this obtained, anyway?

If you use a password moving forward, Excel/Office applies a layer of encryption to the file as well, so you'd need the password to view the contents. There are a few cracking utilities available for these files but a long password would largely mitigate attacks against this encryption.

So in short, no, he would still be able to access the file. Now that you have it passworded, if this were to happen again then they would not be able to easily view the contents.

 

[Keith]

I had the spreadsheet saved from an old computer on Works .wks. My new computer would not open .wks files so I sought help from him. He somehow changed the file to an .xls and was able to open it on his computer. I then used the .xls file and put it in my new computer. ?? As far as I know it is still in his computer also. I have not said anything yet but have thought about asking him to delete it from his computer but have not done so, yet. I trust him to not take advantage of my files but I don't like my personal information on someone else's computer. ?? (It was all done by moving my old hard drive that contained the spreadsheet form my old computer to his. I had also tried moving the old hard drive to my new computer, before seeking help, but it still would not open.)