Data Access
Password protection can be used to protect the content of the PST files. However, Microsoft admits that the password adds very little protection, due to the existence of commonly available tools which can remove or simply bypass the password protection. The password to access the table is stored without the first and last XOR CRC-32 integer representation of itself in the PST file. Outlook checks to make sure that it matches the user-specified password and refuses to operate if there is no match. The data is readable by the libpst project code.
Microsoft (MS) offers three values for the encryption setting: none, compressible, and high.
- None the PST data is stored as plain text.
- Compressible the PST data is encrypted with a byte-substitution cipher with a fixed substitution table.
- High (sometimes called "better") encryption is similar to a WWII German Enigma cipher with three fixed rotors.
Note that neither of the two encryption modes uses the user-specified password as any part of the key for the encryption.
Read more about this topic: Personal Storage Table
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