

companies to hand over data or encryption keys.

If you're very serious about security and privacy, you might not trust a Microsoft solution. It's fairly easy for an attacker to break Windows encryption using a brute-force attack, which is when an attacker uses a program that methodically guesses every possible combination of letters and numbers, starting with common passwords. If you encrypt a single file, the computer stores an unencrypted version of that file in its temporary memory, so a savvy snoop can still access it. Windows' built-in encryption isn't a perfect solution. How good are Windows' encryption services? Open a Microsoft Office program and click Open These steps work for all up-to-date versions of Office, across Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. You won't be able to open it in Google Docs, Adobe Reader or LibreOffice. Once you encrypt a file this way, you'll need to reopen it in Microsoft Office.

This process encrypts individual files compatible with Microsoft Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint or Excel. How to encrypt files using Microsoft Office So, again, keep an unencrypted backup of the file on a physical drive somewhere safe where it won't be found. If you lose your encryption passwords, you've lost your encrypted files forever.

