When you are collaborating on a project with various individuals, you often need to exchange documents between each other. If it contains privileged information, and it ends-up in the wrong hands, it could have disastrous results. That is why it is crucial to protect your files from unwanted eyes. PDFSmart can do so, in just a few minutes. In the paragraphs below, we will explain how.
How to Protect a Document With PDFSmart
No matter what the original format of a document is, it should always be transformed into a PDF file, before sharing it with others. It is the minimum security that you must provide to any information that you put out into the world. But that is clearly not sufficient. Your next step will be to go online and head to PDFSmart.com where you will be able to add two more layers of protection to the PDF. The first one may seem basic, but it is still today’s easiest solution to privacy, which is to create password protection for it. PDFSmart will ask you to choose one that will consist of at least seven characters. One of them will have to be a number, and it should also include one capital letter as well as a special character. This will make it difficult for anyone to access the document, even if they have the digital file on their computer or phone. Difficult but not impossible.
That is why PDFSmart added a second layer of protection which consists in encryption. It is also quite easy to do, even though the results will be very hard for anyone to crack if they absolutely want to gain access the data on the file. The platform uses two different and advanced protocols to encrypt the PDF, which are ARC4 and AES. The only action you will need to take, is to upload the file on the site. Then you can send it out to whomever needs to see it and provide them the access information, so that they can see it the way that it should be.
What are ARC4 and AES Encryption Protocols used by PDFSmart?
RC4 encryption, best known as ARC4, is a type of symmetric key algorithm used for encrypting and decrypting data. It is a stream cipher that operates on data, one byte at a time. It is used within popular cryptographic protocols such as SSL and WEP 1. One of its main advantages is that it is relatively fast and simple.
AES encryption protocol is also a symmetric key algorithm used for encrypting and decrypting data. The algorithm uses a series of substitution and permutation operations to transform the input block into the resulting ciphertext block. Today, AES encryption has become the standard and is widely used in secure communications and data storage systems, thanks to its high level of security and efficiency. It explains why PDFSmart uses it to encrypt its users’ documents.
To conclude, let us insist that anyone that shares private digital information should use a tool like PDFSmart to protect its data. Otherwise, they may find out that they have been compromised, sooner than later.