Can Publish to web be made safe by embedding in a password protected site?

[murrayb8]

Hi,

Im using the publish to web feature to embed reports into a sway report which is then password protected and then that link to that page is only shared with a few people, does this method of sharing make the reporting safer? I know obviously if the link and password get shared thats not safe but presuming they remain safe can the data/report be accessed any other way?

Thanks

[MattAllington · Accepted solution]

The issue is that anyone with the link has free access to the data without the need to authenticate (I'm sure you know that). I guess it is unlikely that someone will guess the URL (any URL) so that is probably a low risk. But unless you can be 100% sure that everyone down stream will do the right thing, you should assume it is not secure.  So if one person forgets to replace a password, or innocently shares the link not knowing the implication, then the cat is out. Of course you can shut down the link anytime, but how would you know there is an issue given there is no authentication? 

If you dont want to pay for pro (which is very cheap btw) then I think a safer option is to create dashboards and share those. At least they are secure.

I wrote about the options here

http://exceleratorbi.com.au/top-tips-for-sharing-content-using-power-bi/