When we think of data breaches and data security, the first words that come to mind probably aren’t “Excel spreadsheet.” But considering how many organizations use Excel—at least 54% of businesses worldwide as of a recent market study—the last thing you want to do is underestimate the security risk that spreadsheets can pose if they’re not properly managed.
Research finds that nearly 70% of spreadsheet-related data breaches are caused by human errors: accidentally emailing sensitive information, not anonymizing confidential details, or overlooking hidden data. All seemingly minor errors, but with major consequences.
Consider just two years ago when the Police Service of Northern Ireland accidentally exposed the personal data of more than 9,000 officers and staff due to a hidden worksheet in an Excel file. That oversight cost them £750,000.
We’re not telling you that you have to stop using Excel for all your reporting needs—we would never! We love Excel just as much as you do. What we are suggesting though is looking at the use case for encrypting Excel. How do you do it? When do you use it? And what other protective measures can stack up to make sure you don’t give the wrong people access to data they shouldn’t have?
Safeguard Your Excel
The good news is that Excel comes with several built-in security features, including both file- and cell-level encryption techniques that can safeguard your Excel data and help you sleep better at night.
Here’s how:
Encrypt the Entire File
- Open the workbook and click to File → Info.
- Choose Protect Workbook → Encrypt with Password.
- Enter the password of your choice and click OK.
- Excel will ask you to confirm the password. Retype and select OK.
- Save the workbook to apply the encryption.
Now, anytime a user wants to open the workbooks, they’ll be prompted for the password. No access can be gained without the proper password.
Encrypt Cells or Ranges
- Select the cell(s) with sensitive data.
- Right click and choose Format Cells…
- Under the Protection tab, check the boxes for both Hidden and Locked. Then click OK.
- To run the protection, select Review in the main Excel ribbon and click Protect Sheet.
- You’ll be asked to create a password, and you can also customize permissions for specific users. Click OK to enable.
Once the cells are encrypted, anyone who tries to edit or view the protected cells will need to fill in the password prompt. Any user can still interact with unprotected cells in the sheet without needing a password.
Those options are great, but for the best native Excel protection, you can actually combine workbook encryption with sheet protection.
- First, encrypt the workbook as a whole with a password.
- Next, set up sheet protection with customized permissions
- Protect each worksheet individually
- Assign different permissions for viewing vs. editing
- Use different, unique passwords for each protected sheet.
- Set up workbook structure protection
- Under the Review tab in the main ribbon, select Protect Workbook.
- Check Protect structure, enter a password, and click OK.
- Next, enforce formula hiding for certain cells
- Select the cells with formulas you want to protect
- Right click for Format Cells… Under the Protection tab, select Hidden and click OK.
- Enable sheet protection.
Now you have customized permissions to precisely control what each user can and cannot see or modify.
Alternately, if you want to supply a “read-only” version of your spreadsheet so that anyone can view but no one can edit, you can do that in three easy steps:
- Under File, select Info.
- Choose Protect Workbook.
- Select Always Open Read-Only.
And just like that, your spreadsheet is protected from accidental edits or manipulation. This is especially helpful when sharing your spreadsheet with colleagues or clients.
When to Encrypt Your Spreadsheets
We use Excel for all manner of things, both personally and professionally. And while you might not need to encrypt your personal library database, you should probably encrypt some of your business spreadsheets, especially when they include:
Sensitive Personal Information
Does your spreadsheet have names, addresses, Social Security numbers, or any other personally identifiable information? This is a big flag for data privacy and compliance rules. Make sure those files are encrypted.
Financial Information
Protect your business and your customers from fraud by protecting any workbook that has bank account details, credit card numbers, or even transaction records.
Confidential Business Data
This kind of data can include everything from customer lists to sales data and internal reports. Encrypt these to protect your org from data breaches, costly fines, and loss of customer trust.
Legal Compliance
Ah, data privacy laws. Depending on where your company is located and where it does business, you’ll have a slew of compliance and protection mandates to adhere to, including GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and more. These will specify what data absolutely must be encrypted.
A Final Note on Excel Security
Native Excel encryption and protection are excellent tools to employ, especially on sensitive reporting. That’s why at CloudExtend, we have doubled down on security to make sure information in your reports can only be seen by those with the right permissions.
Allow us to explain.
You pull a lot of data from NetSuite, Salesforce, and other data sources for your reporting. We make doing that even easier with our NetSuite Excel integration app, ExtendInsights. This direct integration empowers your teams to automatically pull and combine multiple saved searches into Excel reports and Power BI dashboards. The best part, though, at least when it comes to security?
ExtendInsights leverages native data source security settings. So if a colleague doesn’t have access to specific data within NetSuite, they can’t access the data either through ExtendInsights. Just one more layer of security and protection that will help you sleep at night after working hard on your Excel reporting during the day.
Try it yourself for free for two full weeks, no credit card required. Get started here.