I connect excel to external data sources (mainly sql server DBs) alot and I am looking for a way to hide/secure the data string that is used for this connection. Currently if I embed a query into the excel workbook i need to tell it the server, username and password. When a user uses the file if they are savvy they can see this connection string and acquire the username and password to the DB/Server, an obvious issue.
I am guessing it is easy to avoid this by using an external file for the connections and then lock down the external file? If that is the case does the user also need at least read access to this external file?
Hopefully I am missing a very easy solution..