If you need to SECURE your Microsoft Access databases, I have multiple seminars to help you:
- Access Security Seminar
- Access Split Database Security Seminar
- Access Data Encryption Seminar
- Access Registration Seminar
Microsoft Access, by itself, does not have an easy way to provide multi-user security. There used to be a User Level Security Wizard back in Access 2003 and before, but Microsoft removed it starting with Access 2007. However, there are several techniques you can use to lock down your database to prevent unauthorized access and secure your data.
If all you need is to protect your database so that only YOU (or a small set of trusted users) can access it, you can simply create a Database Password. That's a single password for one user. If you know the password, you can use the whole database.
Next if you want to secure the DESIGN of your database, you can encrypt it and create an ACCDE File. This is a "compiled" version of your database. Your users can view and edit data, but they can't get into the design of your forms, reports, macros, and VB code modules. I cover this in my Access Expert Level 21 class.
I have several different seminars that show you various techniques to protect your database. The first is my highly recommended MICROSOFT ACCESS SECURITY SEMINAR. In this seminar, you learn the basics of locking down your database to prevent unauthorized access. Topics covered include:
- Create user and group security inside your database
- Unique individual logon usernames and passwords
- Control who has access to which database objects
- Send email notices from inside your database
- Create a detailed system log to track users
- Encrypt and secure your database files
That seminar will teach you how to protect your database to keep the average users from messing with it. Only the super-experienced hackers will be able to figure out how to bypass that security. If you need even more protection, however, my SPLIT DATABASE SECURITY SEMINAR will teach you how to protect your back-end data files against unauthorized use by breaking your database up into multiple tables and placing them in different Windows-level shared folders. If, for example, the majority of your users don't need to see the Accounting tables, you place them in a separate shared folder with unique security. This seminar covers:
- Set up multiple customer tables, one for normal data, one for sensitive data
- Build two customer forms; the sensitive form requiring a password to open
- Split your database into 3 files: front end and two back-end files for tables
- Create shared folders on your server or Windows PC
- Use Windows-level file & folder security to prevent access to the sensitive data
- Move the back-end files to the server and relink with the Linked Table Manager
- Encrypt your front-end database and create an ACCDE file
If all of that doesn't give you enough security, the next seminar will show you how to encrypt the DATA in your tables so that it looks like garbage. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't give us any way to protect the actual database tables themselves. So, if a malicious user who normally HAS access to the database decides he wants to copy your data for himself, there's really nothing to stop him. My ACCESS DATA ENCRYPTION SEMINAR will show you how to scramble the actual data in your tables so that even if someone downloads a copy of your ACCDB back-end file, once they open it, the information will look like gibberish. You will:
- Learn how to scramble data in your tables to hide sensitive information
- Convert text characters to their ASCII equivalent values and back
- Perform mathematical obfuscation on your data
- Control access to the form that handles the encryption / decryption
In my ACCESS REGISTRATION SEMINAR, you will learn how to protect your Access database so you can give or sell it to others, and they will be required to register their copy of the database with you. This prevents theft and piracy, and protects your intellectual property. Topics include:
- Discussion of database security concepts and our registration scheme
- How to create a startup form that autoruns when the database opens
- How to read and write values to the Windows Registry for a specific user
- Generating random numbers and developing a security key algorithm
- Timing out registrations after a specific time period. Great for subscriptions
Now, the single best way to protect your data is to use a database server program, like Microsoft SQL Server. However, setting up SQL Server can be costly and time consuming. I will be preparing a course series to cover SQL Server in the future. However, it is very possible to set up a secure database that will keep out 99.9% of all people, using ONLY Microsoft Access. These seminars show you how.
12 years ago
