Descriptions of Access's user- and group-based security design range from labyrinthine to inscrutable. In reality, the Jet-based security model closely resembles that of Windows 2000/NT and early versions of SQL Server. You create groups having particular sets of permissions for Access objects, and then add individual users to the groups. Unlike SQL Server and Windows versions of other client/server RDBMSs, Jet-based security doesn't integrate with Windows 2000/NT.
Access has two levels of security: user level and file level. The user-level security system requires each user of Access to enter a username and a password to start Access. You establish file-level security for back-end .mdbs through the network operating system, and grant users permissions to access shared folders. If the server's file system is NTFS, you can grant permissions for individual files. Network administrators usually manage server folder- and file-level security.