GlobalSign Trusted to Deliver Certified PDFs

GlobalSign have been welcomed as new Adobe document security partner as it announces the release of CDS product suite DocumentSign

December 12, 2007; 03:11 AM
GlobalSign Inc (www.globalsign.com), one of the longest established Certification Authorities (CA) and specialists in SSL certificate security, today announced it has been selected by Adobe as one of a limited number of Internet security companies authorized to provide products and services utilizing Adobe’s Certified Document Services (CDS) platform. The GlobalSign DocumentSign™ solution suite allows organizations to create tamperproof, time-stamped and digitally signed PDF documents. Recipients of the digitally signed document can easily determine the authenticity, origin and integrity of the PDF - essential security requisites for organizations publishing high value or high risk electronic documents.

“Adobe is pleased to welcome GlobalSign into the Certified Document Services (CDS) program.” says John Landwehr, director of Security Solutions and Strategy at Adobe. “GlobalSign is a natural fit for CDS given their extensive experience in bringing trusted secure electronic communication to governments, enterprises, and education institutions worldwide. By working with GlobalSign, Adobe provides consumers a wider choice in CDS implementation models with the confidence that the digital IDs issued were delivered from a WebTrust accredited Certificate Authority operating under a stringent certificate policy standard established by Adobe.”

DocumentSign enables document authors to apply either certified or approval signatures to PDF files using GlobalSign CDS compliant digital certificates. Digitally signed documents are automatically validated using the free Adobe® Reader® software (Adobe® Flash® Player and Reader® software combined are installed on more than 700 million connected PCs and devices worldwide). Unlike other document security solutions, no additional client software, configuration or understanding of security technology is required; recipients of the document simply have to open the PDF. The user experience has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible, with the Adobe Reader application displaying a special blue bar for documents certified using GlobalSign’s DocumentSign solutions. The blue bar gives information on the security status, such as whether the document has been amended after being signed by the author and also shows who signed the document and, based on a trusted time-source, when the document was signed.

“As ever, security for organizations is at the top of everyone’s agenda but it is often associated with locking down functionality and lengthening processes. GlobalSign’s partnership with Adobe for CDS solutions address these misconceptions by bringing organizations the tools to increase both efficiency and productivity as well as providing strong security for electronic documents,” said Steve Roylance, director of business development for GlobalSign. “Sensitive data, whether corporate or personal, can now be authenticated and secured, away from the dangers of misrepresentation and fraud, no matter how far it travels or how many sets of hands it passes through.”

CDS solutions have a growing demand within a wide range of industries including notary and legal professions, healthcare, education, financial services and government. In addition they are suitable for all sizes of business, helping to reduce the burden of lengthy paperwork processes and promoting the use of best security practices in the exchange of sensitive company information.

One early supporter of GlobalSign’s CDS initiative is the Notaries Society, the representative society for the 800 or so Notaries Public practising in England and Wales. Many notaries carry out work for commercial firms engaged in international trade, and for private individuals, such as dealing with aspects of the purchase or sale of land and property abroad.

Michael Lightowler, a member of the Council of the Notaries Society commented, “Our work requires us to take the utmost precaution in integrity and security, which in years gone by meant wax seals and hand delivery. However, we are moving with the times and in order to drive our values into the modern era we are adopting technology-based methods of signature verification and secure document transmission. GlobalSign’s Adobe CDS solutions will help us reduce the fraudulent activity that often takes place in areas such as those governed by The Financial Services Authority, The Land Registry and the Probate Registry. It represents a high security, low cost solution that already has a widespread technology user base.”

Further details of GlobalSign’s DocumentSign product suite will be released shortly and will detail the innovative GlobalSign solutions that address all tiers of the document security market – ranging from authors who sign only a few documents, to medium and high volume document distributors. For further information please visit http://www.globalsign.com/.

About GlobalSign

Established in 1996 and as a WebTrust accredited public certificate authority, GlobalSign offers publicly trusted SSL, including new Extended Validation SSL Certificates, S/MIME and code signing certificates for use on all popular platforms including Mobile. Whereas the RootSign program allows the widely distributed and highly trusted GlobalSign root CA certificates to provide immediate trust for Microsoft CA and other inhouse CA users. These core GlobalSign solutions allow its thousands of enterprise customers and extensive partner network to conduct secure online transactions and data submission, and provide tamper-proof distributable code as well as being able to bind identities to client certificates for email security and remote two factor authentication, such as SSL VPNs. The company has a rich history of innovation within the online security market and operates sales and support offices in the US, UK, Japan and Belgium.

About GMO Internet Inc.

GMO Internet Inc. (CEO Masatoshi Kumagai) is headquartered in Tokyo and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, First Section (Code: 9449). Its Internet based business areas include Internet infrastructure and media. Further details can be found at http://www.gmo.jp/en/ and Mr Kumagai’s profile can be found at http://gmo.jp/en/profile/message.html.

James Kennedy, [email protected], 0208 392 4091 Stephanie Ross, [email protected]