Improvements in Office 2003 Security

Enhancing collaboration and sharing ideas and projects are great ways to increase productivity and creativity, but they're risky, so security is an important component of Office 2003. Many security-related improvements built into the infrastructure of Office and its core applications are transparent to the user. Internet Explorer and Office 2003 now share the same trusted certificate list- making it easier for you to manage accepted sites-and Office 2003 has improved compatibility with third-party anti-virus software.

New IRM Technology

A new addition in Office 2003, Information Rights Management (IRM) technology runs on Windows Server (with a premium Client Access License) to give organizations running Office 2003 and SharePoint Team Services V2 the ability to limit access and editability of key documents. With IRM, users and managers can restrict functions that enable documents to be copied or forwarded outside an organization; additionally, range-based permissions and expiration dates can be used to limit and terminate access.

IRM is designed to help you safeguard the valuable information in your organization and works alongside your current policies for security, document confidentiality, and e-mail use. For more about working with IRM in the various Office applications, see Chapter 8, 'Microsoft Office 2003 Productivity Enhancements.'