Documents protected by SealPath can be opened on mobile devices and Mac machines without installing anything on the device. Just as there has always been this capability in Windows, SealPath has extended support for Office Mobile and Office for Mac.
Internal as well as external users can open a document protected by SealPath through Microsoft Office Mobile on Android and iOS and through Microsoft Office for Mac, without installing any additional application.
The SealPath IRM protection system can be understood with the digital rights components that the Microsoft Office application for Android, iOS and Mac have pre-installed. This functionality is available in SealPath Enterprise for SaaS and for On-Premise.
How does protection work for Office Mobile and Office for Mac?
When Office tries to open a protected document, it reads the information that SealPath leaves in the file and connects to the SealPath protection system. First, the SealPath system asks for the user’s identity. If the user has not previously opened any protected documents on the device, the SealPath system asks Office to request that the user enter his/her credentials. The process between Office and SealPath is validated through OAuth2.
Once the credentials have been validated by the SealPath system, a token with temporary validity is downloaded to the device. Office provides SealPath with this token whenever any protected document is opened in the future, without the user having to re-enter his/her credentials, as long as the token has not expired.
Once the user has been validated, Office sends the SealPath system the token that identifies the user, the identifier of the policy with which the document has been protected and a second identifier referring to the protected document. This information is extracted by Office from the document protected by SealPath.
With this information, the SealPath system obtains the most recent version of the protection policy (thus the applied protection is dynamic, it can be changed at any time and the users’ rights on the document are modified, wherever this document is) and checks whether or not the user has permission to open the document. If you have permissions, the SealPath system decides what you can do and what you cannot do (view, edit, print, etc.).
With user permissions defined on the document, the SealPath system generates a license for use with these permissions and sends it back to the Office application on the device. This license is generated using the format that Office understands and Office disables the options for which the user does not have permissions, pursuant to the license provisions.
Benefits of extended IRM protection for all Office versions
With this SealPath feature that extends IRM protection to Microsoft Office on Android, iOS and Mac, the benefits for users are:
- They can work on Android, iOS and Mac with protected documents with the same functionalities as for unprotected documents:
it opens using the native application (Office), they can edit the document and save the changes (if they have edit permissions), they can open it either locally or from a server or from the cloud. Forget about limited viewers and editors different from the usual ones or uploading critical documents to web environments.
Users won’t notice the difference between working with protected documents and unprotected documents; they will only see that some options are restricted if they haven’t been granted the corresponding permissions. The rest is all the same.
- They can work on Android, iOS and Mac with protected documents with the same user experience to which they are accustomed in Microsoft Windows.
- They can share critical documents securely, knowing that these documents are easily opened on all types of platforms, either by internal or external personnel.
Users can apply security to sensitive information while maintaining the agility that the business needs.
- Knowing that protected documents will be easily opened by suppliers, customers and collaborators because they won’t be forced to install anything additional on their devices.
Users don’t need to be concerned about complaints from collaborators when they are forced to work in unusual environments or when they have to rely on technical staff in their companies to open the critical documents that need to be shared in any project.
- Critical and sensitive documents can travel and be used securely, no matter where they are:
The security that the company needs to adopt regarding sensitive information continues to be applied to documents protected within and outside of the company. The documents travel with the security that the company has decided to apply to the information that these documents contain.
If the owner of the documents fears for the security of the documents because they are being opened in environments with security risks, such as a mobile device, this risk is eliminated by SealPath’s IRM protection.
The document protects itself from the environment and the actions that can be carried out on it will only include the actions that the owner of the document has established, no matter where it is opened.
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