Office Professional 2021 is the latest version of Microsoft’s popular productivity suite, which includes essential programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. One of the significant concerns for users of any software is the security and privacy of their data, and Microsoft has made significant strides in addressing these concerns with the latest release.
As more and more people rely on digital tools to get work done, it’s become increasingly important to prioritize security and privacy in office software. Office Professional 2021 is a suite of tools designed to help users be more productive and efficient, while also providing robust security and privacy features.
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at some of the security and privacy features in Office Professional 2021, highlighting how they can help protect your sensitive data and give you greater control over your privacy.
- Multi-Factor Authentication: With multi-factor authentication, users are required to provide additional verification, such as a code or fingerprint, before accessing their account. Office Professional 2021 supports multi-factor authentication, making it much harder for unauthorized individuals to access your account.
- Encryption: Encryption is a technique that converts data into an unreadable format, which can only be accessed with the appropriate key. Office Professional 2021 includes built-in encryption features, which help to safeguard your sensitive data from unauthorized access.
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP): DLP is a feature that helps organizations protect sensitive information by preventing it from being shared outside the organization. Office Professional 2021 includes DLP capabilities, which enable users to classify sensitive information and set policies to prevent it from being shared via email or other channels.
- Protected View: Office Professional 2021 also includes a “Protected View” feature that opens documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in a sandboxed environment. This means that any potential malware or virus contained within the file cannot harm your computer.
- Privacy Controls: Office Professional 2021 includes a range of privacy controls that give you more control over how your data is used. For example, you can choose to turn off the “Connected Services” feature, which sends information to Microsoft about how you use Office applications. You can also opt out of personalized advertising and telemetry data collection.
- Regular Updates: Finally, it’s worth noting that Office Professional 2021 is updated regularly to address any security vulnerabilities that may arise. These updates are designed to keep your data safe and secure, and they’re installed automatically so you don’t have to worry about manually updating the software.
Overall, Office Professional 2021 offers an impressive range of security and privacy features, making it a great choice for businesses and individuals who need to protect sensitive data. By implementing these features and staying up-to-date with the latest software updates, you can ensure that your data remains secure and your privacy is protected.
Protect Your Microsoft Word Documents
There are several ways you can protect your Microsoft Word documents, including:
- Password protects your document: You can add a password to your document so that only authorized users can open and view it. To do this, go to File > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password, and enter a password.
- Restrict editing: You can restrict editing of your document by allowing only certain individuals to make changes. To do this, go to Review > Protect Document > Restrict Editing, and select the options you want to apply.
- Use digital signatures: You can use digital signatures to ensure the authenticity of your document and prevent unauthorized changes. To do this, go to File > Info > Protect Document > Add a Digital Signature.
- Use document protection features: Microsoft Word offers several document protection features, such as marking a document as final, which prevents others from making changes and enabling track changes, which tracks any changes made to the document.
- Save a backup copy: Always save a backup copy of your important documents in a secure location, such as an external hard drive or cloud storage.
By taking these steps, you can help protect your Microsoft Word documents from unauthorized access and modifications.
Protection and security in Excel
Excel provides several features to protect and secure your data, including:
- Password Protection: Excel allows you to password-protect your workbook, worksheet, or even specific cells within a worksheet. You can set a password to prevent unauthorized access to the data.
- Restrict Editing: Excel also allows you to restrict editing on specific cells or ranges. This feature ensures that only authorized users can modify the data.
- Cell Locking: You can lock specific cells within a worksheet to prevent accidental changes. By default, all cells in a worksheet are unlocked, but you can change this by selecting the cells you want to lock and then choose “Format Cells” and “Protection” from the Home tab.
- Digital Signatures: Excel supports digital signatures that allow you to verify the authenticity of a document. You can also use digital signatures to ensure that the document has not been tampered with.
- Trusted Locations: Excel allows you to designate trusted locations where you can save files without receiving security warnings. This feature can save time and make it easier to work with Excel files.
- Data Validation: Excel’s data validation feature allows you to set rules that determine what data can be entered into specific cells. This feature can help prevent data entry errors and ensure that the data is accurate.
- Audit Trail: Excel allows you to create an audit trail that tracks changes made to a worksheet. This feature can help you identify who made changes to the worksheet and when they were made.
Overall, Excel provides many features to help protect and secure your data, and using these features can help ensure the integrity of your data.
Security in PowerPoint Presentations
PowerPoint is a widely used tool for creating presentations, and it is important to ensure that these presentations are secure to protect the information they contain. Here are some tips for improving security in PowerPoint presentations:
- Password-protect your presentation: You can add a password to your PowerPoint presentation to prevent unauthorized access. To do this, go to the “File” menu, select “Info,” and click “Protect Presentation.” Then choose “Encrypt with Password” and enter a password that you can remember but is difficult for others to guess.
- Remove hidden metadata: PowerPoint may contain metadata such as author names, comments, and other information that could be sensitive. To remove this information, go to the “File” menu, select “Info,” and click “Check for Issues.” Then choose “Inspect Document” and uncheck any items you don’t want to include, such as “Document Properties and Personal Information.”
- Be cautious with hyperlinks: If you include hyperlinks in your PowerPoint presentation, make sure they lead to trustworthy sources. Malicious links can lead to phishing scams or malware attacks.
- Disable automatic content updates: By default, PowerPoint can automatically update content from external sources such as linked images or videos. Disable this feature to prevent potentially harmful content from being downloaded or displayed without your knowledge. To do this, go to the “File” menu, select “Options,” and click “Trust Center.” Then choose “Trust Center Settings,” select “External Content,” and uncheck “Enable automatic updates.”
- Use digital signatures: Digital signatures can help verify the authenticity and integrity of your PowerPoint presentation. To add a digital signature, go to the “File” menu, select “Info,” and click “Protect Presentation.” Then choose “Add a Digital Signature” and follow the instructions to create a digital signature.
By following these tips, you can help ensure that your PowerPoint presentations are secure and protect any sensitive information they may contain.
Conclusion
Office Professional 2021 is a robust office suite that prioritizes security and privacy. Its end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, data loss prevention tools, privacy controls, and regular updates all work together to keep your data safe and secure. Whether you’re an individual user or part of a larger organization, Office Professional 2021 is a great choice for anyone who needs a reliable and secure set of office tools.
