How-To Geek

I should preface that there's probably no single answer to this, but I would just like to get people's feel about this...

I use Win 7 and a freebie office suite that can save and open files using the old Office XP's "RC4 Strong Cryptography Provider" 128-bit encryption option. I have a spreadsheet which I use as my "password vault" -- protected by a 15-character strong password. This file resides in my C drive, my local external drive, and also in "the cloud".

I realize there are now better encryption options -- like AES 256-bit -- but my question is this: if someone manages to hack into my cloud account -- or if someone really smart hacks into the cloud provider's servers directly -- and they get hold of my account (or millions of accounts including mine) -- is the above protection "robust enough"? My feel is that I need not have the strongest protection -- but just "tough enough" -- with the assumption that hackers would crack open the simple passwords ("12345") and leave the tougher ones alone.

Is the Office XP's encryption still considered sufficiently secure? Or are they now considered too easily crackable?

I have no clue on how that encryption works. My recommendation would be to compress (or just store) your files using 7-Zip, and using the AES-256 encryption you mention. This way you can encrypt any kind of file you need. If you need any indications on using this just ask.

http://www.7-zip.org/

Office passwords are very crackable. I have software that does just this. Ive used bcrypt. I'd venture to say its more secure than what office has to offer.

http://bcrypt.sourceforge.net/