Security Issues in Microsoft Word

Security issues with Word can be controlled to some degree by the user removing the author information stored within the code back-end or metadata of a Word document.

Activate your Visual Basic toolbar by choosing View Toolbars, Visual Basic.

Then click on the Microsoft Script Editor (MSE) button, which is the last button on the far right.

You'll then be able to see the code stored within a Word document.

Even with the saved document on the desktop (or anywhere else on the computer) you can simply mouse over to see the author of the document.

To clean a Word document of your personal information, to the Tools menu and select Options (near the bottom of the dialog). Click on the Security tab and put a check mark in the option, “Remove personal information from this file on save”. Remember, the key words here are ‘on save’. The information will not be verifiably removed until the document has been saved with this setting selecting.

To verify that your personal information has in fact been removed, you can mouse over the saved document ( image word_mse005a.jpg) or you can open the document again, click the MSE button and then see that your personal information has been removed.