Protection
Microsoft Access offers several ways to secure the application while allowing users to remain productive.
The most basic is a database password. Once entered, the user has full control of all the database objects. This is a relatively weak form of protection which can be easily cracked.
A higher level of protection is the use of workgroup security requiring a user name and password. Users and groups can be specified along with their rights at the object type or individual object level. This can be used to specify people with read-only or data entry rights but may be challenging to specify. A separate workgroup security file contains the settings which can be used to manage multiple databases. Workgroup security is not supported in the Access 2007 and Access 2010 ACCDB database format, although Access 2007 and Access 2010 still support it for MDB databases.
Databases can also be encrypted. The ACCDB format offers significantly advanced encryption from previous versions.
Additionally, if the database design needs to be secured to prevent changes, Access databases can be locked/protected (and the source code compiled) by converting the database to a .MDE file. All changes to the VBA project (modules, forms, or reports) need to be made to the original MDB and then reconverted to MDE. In Access 2007 and Access 2010, the ACCDB database is converted to an ACCDE file. Some tools are available for unlocking and "decompiling", although certain elements including original VBA comments and formatting are normally irretrievable.
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