I have been instructed to find a way to encrypt data in my tables so it can not be viewed if removed from my system.

I don't even know if this is possible.

Has anyone else done this, if so, how did you do it and with what level of success?

Well, there's good news and bad news. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smirk.gif)

You can encrypt an Access .accdb file by assigning it a database password. Older .mdb files allow a password to be assigned but its security is much weaker.

However, even this protection is pretty weak. There are "crack" programs that can be found readily on the web that claim (with some validity) to be able to break Access security.

If the security of the data is in fact business-critical you should really consider putting it into a more secure, client-server system such as SQL/Server. This needn't be terribly expensive or difficult; SQL/Server Express is free, downloadable, and has much better security; and you can use your existing Access frontend pretty much unchanged to manage the data. And the SQL database (if it's properly set up and secured) will be unusable to anyone copying the data files off your system.

Hi Bruce,

Agree with John but also take a look at the Code Archive for some encryption demos.

Just my 2 cents... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/2cents.gif)