Protection recommendations
Having read this text, many users will become unsure about entrusting their secrets to Microsoft software. The answer is very simple – use other software products to protect confidential information. For example, one can use a reputable, thoroughly tested Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software. It is based on a well-known mathematical problem – factorization of a very great number into prime numbers. There is no known (analytical) solution of this problem, and exhaustion of all possible combinations will take forever – even with state-of-the-art machines.
If you decide to protect your document with a password (to set a file open password in Word or Excel) anyway, choose a complicated one. Avoid using words from a dictionary, or your name/surname as a password. Your password should consist of letters (both upper- and lower-case), numbers, and special symbols. You can also use symbols from your national alphabet. A secure password might look like this: “fO7#s!kP4x*a”. However please, note that with today’s computers, decrypting your document won’t take longer than a few days (or even hours on a LAN).
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