Are You Revealing Company Secrets in Your E-mailed Documents?
Most business managers know that electronic data can be harder
to destroy than paper data. Copies can be made or e-mailed
with the click of a button, and even deleting files may leave
their data intact on the hard drive. One vulnerability that
is less familiar is Microsoft Office metadata. E-mailing
a client a contract in the form of a Word document may reveal
a lot more than is evident from reading the text. The document
may contain author names, revision history, internal file
locations, and in some cases even a history of changes and
past versions. Imagine a customer finding out that your contract
was your standard version, except for a 20% price increase
- made today!
The term "metadata" is used in different ways, but for this
discussion we'll use it to refer to any data contained in
a document other than the visible text and graphics. Much
of this metadata is actually useful to facilitate collaboration
between coworkers, to track changes, etc. However, when the
document goes outside the company, these useful features may
become liabilities.
Author names and revision dates are almost always included
in a document. Usually, this data is fairly innocuous, although
if the document was "borrowed" from someone else it could
be embarrassing. Word has some additional features that can
create even greater exposure - hidden text, change
tracking, and versions. Hidden text is often used
for notes shared internally between collaborators - while
this poses no problems in printed copies, if someone unwittingly
sends a Word document by e-mail, the hidden text can be exposed
if the client makes it visible. Change tracking allows one
user to propose changes and another user to view the changes
and accept or reject them. If a document is sent outside the
organization before changes are finalized, however, the recipient
can display them and view the different versions. And, speaking
of versions, in some cases Word can store one or more complete
versions of a document, again providing the recipient with
a history of how the document was changed for their consumption.
In short, if you distribute Microsoft Office documents to
customers, vendors, etc., it's important to be aware of the
content you can't see and to remove it. The various ways to
remove this data are beyond the scope of this article, but
here are a few good starting points:
How
to Minimize Metadata in Microsoft Office Documents -
Confidentiality
and MetaData in Word Documents
"...Shares
Well with Others..." - Coping with Metadata Issues
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CompStar Technologies is a leading Indiana-based provider of networking, technology, and communications services. With offices in Mishawaka (serving South Bend, Elkhart, Warsaw, Michigan City, Fort Wayne, Niles, St. Joseph, and Benton Harbor, Michigan) and Indianapolis, CompStar provides network design / support, network security, wireless networking, business telephone systems, VoIP (voice over IP), and cctv / video surveillance systems. CompStar is the Technology Division of Direct Line Communications, headquartered in Mishawaka, Indiana.
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