Browser bypasses document security

[hans.huber]

How do I prevent PDF document permissions from being overridden by opening the PDF in a browser? I have used 'Document Security Settings' and 'Password Security' to set document permissions and prevent printing, copying, editing, etc. This document protection works as intended when the file is opened in PDF-Xchange Editor or in Adobe Acrobat. However, when opened in Firefox, the document can be copied and printed, and even saved as a PDF without password security, which completely defeats the purpose of the permissions setting.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, hans.huber

Unfortunately, most inbuilt PDF security methods rely on the reading application to understand them, and respect the PDF specifications rules for their handling. This means that some applications, particularly simple ones like web browsers, may simply ignore them. Any edits made to the file while ignoring file security do have the chance of corrupting that copy of the file and leading to eventual data loss in that version of the file however, so it would be best to explicitly advise people against using those options.

Kind regards,

[hans.huber]

Thank you, Dan. You say "MOST inbuilt PDF security methods". Does this mean that there are in fact security methods available in PDF XChange Editor that work regardless of which app is used to open the PDF?

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, hans.huber

Sorry to give a false hope here.. I typically try to avoid being too explicit when referencing the spec until I get direct confirmation from the Dev team. To my knowledge, the Specifications security options operate entirely on "goodwill", and if you wanted to truly prevent someone from accessing your files, you would need to employ a third party method, such as "FileOpen" Security. I do not have the spec on hand, and so I cannot say there absolutely isn't a method I am unaware of, but at this time, I can confidently say we do not offer any methods of applying security to a file which are definitively "impregnable".

With that said, anyone circumventing security on a file (intentionally or otherwise) is liable to corrupt that file in the process of doing so. In this case, their copy of the file could experience some irrecoverable data loss if they continue to edit the file after making such a change.

In your case, you may want to reach out to Firefox, and ask them to improve their PDF security handling for a future update, to prevent at least one popular avenue for this to occur.

Kind regards,