Post.Trust certificates for Adobe® CDS provide customers with a unique digital credential for signing Adobe® PDF documents. The Adobe® Certified Document Services Program enables member Certification Authorities to issue digital certificates to subscribers that can be used to electronically sign Adobe® PDF documents which, when opened using the free Adobe® Reader®, undergo automatic verification. This verification process checks the authenticity and integrity of the document, for example that a bank statement or invoice sent as a PDF actually came from the stated originator (and not an imposter) and was not tampered with in any way during delivery. A visual assurance mark is made visible by the Adobe® Reader® to the document recipient thereby giving a high level of assurance. The exact date and time the document was electronically signed is also readily available and is guaranteed.

Without membership of the Adobe® CDS program, Post.Trust would not automatically be recognised by the Adobe® Reader® software as a trusted certificate issuer. By becoming a member, such recognition becomes automatic by the approximately 500 Million copies of Adobe® Reader® in use globally.

Security

Post.Trust certificates for CDS ensure best practice from a security perspective as the customer's digital credential is stored on a personal cryptographic hardware device manufactured by SafeNet. The cryptographic hardware device which stores the customer’s personal Post.Trust CDS digital certificate is a conveniently sized portable USB key, compliant with the FIPS 140-2 security standard. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications.

Post.Trust Document Signing Solutions and CDS

Post.Trust digital signature solutions, PostTrustID and SpeesdiSign combine the essential attributes of security, integrity, authentication and trust. There are many potential applications, for example, contracts, invoicing, licensing, and general business transactional correspondence. The exchange of electronic documents with legally binding signatures allows inefficient paper based processes reliant on a handwritten signature to be replaced. The recipient can trust in the integrity of the PDF document and the identity of the author as it is automatically validated within Adobe® Acrobat and Reader®.

What are the benefits?

Adobe® CDS is the first broad implementation of document validation technology based on public key infrastructures (PKIs). The trust is automatically built into Adobe® Reader® and Acrobat, therefore no additional software download or certificate installation is required by the recipient to validate a documents authenticity. A key benefit therefore is the ease and simplicity of use for end recipients. When compared with a non-Certified Document Services digital signature solution where a user must explicitly "trust" the author of a document by installing a certificate on their PC, the advantage is clear. Businesses who wish to communicate critical information to broad audiences, such as financial services and government agencies, are struggling to deal with increasing trends in fraud, document forgery and phishing. With Adobe® CDS, individuals and businesses can send securely certified Adobe® PDF documents and forms with the inbuilt benefits of   assurance of identity verification and information integrity.

Examples include:

• Financial services wishing to distribute financial statements or instructions to execute a transaction electronically
• Government policy, legislation, forms, and other important statutory documents where the identity of the author and the  integrity of the publication is critical
• Utility companies who distribute invoicing and billing data
• Regulatory Authorities who wish to issue licences to third parties