It’s common knowledge that cyber-attackers, data saboteurs, and hackers are now getting tech-savvy by the day. Organizations and individuals – no matter how big or small – can now be victims of data theft, cyber attacks, illegal reproduction of digital data, and other cyber crimes.
People who use PDFs for their important digital documents are no exception. Even though PDFs are more secure than Word documents, skilled hackers (even ordinary people who have the basic know-how) can still compromise the data contained in them.
Hence, locking your PDF documents with passwords and encryptions is necessary to avoid such a problematic situation. Here are five reasons to provide your PDFs with an extra layer of security and protection.
Maintain the Integrity of PDF Content
Keeping the integrity of your digital files is essential nowadays. If you don’t want the content of your PDF documents to get altered or modified, it’s necessary to encrypt or protect them with passwords. In this way, data saboteurs and cyber-attackers will have a hard time cracking your PDF files.
Application forms, ebooks, government documents, manuals are excellent examples of PDF files that must be protected with passwords and encryptions. You can use online tools like pdfbear protect to that end.
Limit the Number of People Who Have Access
Surely you’ll agree that not all PDF documents must be opened or viewed by anyone. Some digital files like PDFs contain data that are either private or confidential. In any case, such information shouldn’t be accessed by unauthorized individuals. That’s why it’s crucial to lock your PDF documents and only give access to people who have the right to view them.
Besides keeping sensitive data from everyone’s scrutiny, locking your PDF documents using passwords is also useful when you’re sharing or selling them exclusively.
Prevent People from Plagiarizing PDF Content
Plagiarism and illegal reproduction of digital information are rampant nowadays. Individuals who resort to such crimes target electronic documents like PDFs that are not protected by watermarks, digital signatures, encryptions, and passwords.
For sure, you now have countries that take copyright infringement seriously. But other places don’t enforce strict copyright laws, especially for crimes that typically occur on the internet or digitally.
This downside is avoidable only if you take extra measures to protect your digital documents. Nowadays, you have tools that enable you to protect your digital data against copyright infringement.
Keep Your Authorship on PDF Documents
If you write research or books and publish them in the form of PDFs, it’s a must that you identify yourself as an author of your works. On the internet, many people will copy or reproduce the content of your works without citing you as an author or without authorization from you.
In such a case, you need to put digital signatures to preempt people from using or reproducing your digital documents without permission. For digital signatures, you need first to create a digital ID to use them on your electronic documents, such as PDFs. You can also put encryptions or passwords to make sure that your PDFs are secure.
Observance of Data Protection Laws
To avoid legal troubles, you should make sure to comply with the data protection laws in your country. People working in industries that deal with confidential or private data of individuals and organizations should keep this advice in mind.
If you fail to observe data protection laws, an individual or organization whose data are compromised due to your negligence may file a legal action against you. So, make sure to keep confidential information protected and secured.
Takeaway
Now you know why you should put passwords to your PDF documents. If you want to avoid data theft, copyright infringement, or legal problems, keep in mind the things mentioned in this blog post.