Sending a Word file, Excel spreadsheet, or the like as a file attachment seems harmless enough — unless the file contains hidden data you didn’t know about or didn’t know enough to remove. Outlook plug-in SendShield analyzes outbound file attachments, alerts you to any hidden data it finds, and provides options for removing it.
What is hidden data and how can it hurt you? Take Microsoft Word (please!): The track-changes feature is great for allowing multiple users to make revisions to a document, but the final document frequently contains a full revision history. Thus, any recipient could inadvertently — or intentionally — view those changes, and that could be bad indeed. You know all those stories you read about big companies “inadvertently disclosing information” about financial plans, future products, CEO’s comments, and the like? That kind of hidden data is often the culprit.
SendShield scans your attachments for tracked changes, comments, hidden worksheets and formulas, embedded Excel data, and so on, then allows you to remove the unwanted info or convert the document(s) to PDF, which effectively strips all hidden data.
Note to Microsoft: Steal this product! Wow, is this a must-have for just about every business on the planet. SendShield is free while still in beta; pricing for the final product hasn’t been announced. [via gHacks]
