Forum Discussion
How secure is publishing dashboard to the web (PBI Service) ?
I am a corporate Power BI user. I would like to understand more about the below article which explains about
security issues to consider when dashboards are published to the web.
Is it true that anyone on the internet (who has the link that was created while publishing the PBI file to web) could
view the report ?
My initial understanding is, anyone who publishes the dashboard to the web, can only share the link within a
corporate's intranet and it's users. I would not be able to forward the link to people who lie outside my own
internal organisation.
What is the most secure method of sharing the dashboard then, if anyone can access it from the internet ?
Is it the embedding technique ? But by embedding, wouldn’t this be similar to ‘sharing’ – as in, users pull data
directly from the .pbix file rather than a ‘read only’ snapshot which would have been created by ‘publishing to the web’?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-publish-to-web
Warning
When you use Publish to web, the report or visual you publish can be viewed by anyone on the Internet. There is no authentication used when viewing these reports. Only use Publish to web with reports and data that the anyone on the Internet (unauthenticated members of the public) should be able to see. This includes detail level data that is aggregated in your reports. Before publishing this report, ensure you have the right to share the data and visualizations publicly. Do not publish confidential or proprietary information. If in doubt, check your organization's policies before publishing.
7 Replies
It is exactly as described, anyone in the world with access to the internet can see whatever you "publish to web."
You may securely share the dashboard by provisioning each of your dashboard consumers with a Power BI Pro license and then assigning them to a Power BI App. The data in this app will refresh as configured in the Power BI workspace.
If you have a great number of users then you would want to investigate Power BI Premium.
are you really publishing to the Web or are publishing to a Workspace within your corporate space?
My current method of publishing is within the Workspace within the corporate space. I'm not able to share my web dashboard with anyone outside my corporate (as I cannot send any shareable links directly from within the Power BI webpage.
However, what if someone shares a link through a forwarded email from within the corporation to someone outside the corporation ?
So, I wanted to understand if anyone with internet access can also open the link?
If you use "Publish to Web" then:
Yes, it is 100% open to the Internet with no authentication/authorization required.
