Document security offerings
CAUTIONAdobe Experience Manager Forms document security ensures that only authorized users can use your documents. Using document security, you can safely distribute any information that you have saved in a supported format. Supported file formats include Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.
You can protect documents by using policies. The confidentiality settings you specify in a policy determine how a recipient can use a document to which you apply the policy. For example, you can specify whether recipients can print or copy text, edit text, or add signatures and comments to protected documents.
The policies are stored on Document Security server; you apply the policies to documents through your client application. When you apply a policy to a document, the confidentiality settings specified in the policy protect the information that the document contains. You can distribute the policy-protected document to recipients who are authorized by the policy.
The following diagram shows the typical architecture for AEM Forms Document Security:
Document Security clients
Document Security provides various clients to protect documents, view and edit protected documents, and indexers to enable full-text search on protected documents. You can choose a client based on your requirements and the capabilities of the client.
The Document Security Server is the central component through which Document Security performs transactions such as user authentication, real-time management of policies, and application of confidentiality. The server also provides a central repository for policies, audit records, and other related information.
The Document Security server provides a web-based interface (web page) to create policies, manage policy-protected documents, and monitor events that are associated with policy-protected documents. Administrators can also configure global options such as user authentication, auditing, and messaging for invited users, and manage invited user accounts.
The server is included in AEM Forms Document Security add-on offering. You can contact AEM Forms sales team to purchase the Document Security add-on.
Protect documents
AEM Forms Document Security provides various tools to apply security policies. You can choose a tool as per your requirements and specifications.
You can use Document Security SDK, Adobe Acrobat, Document Security Extension for Microsoft Office, or Portable Protection Library to apply and track the security policies:
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Document Security SDK: The SDK is a feature-rich client. You can use Document Security SDK to access document server functionality, open policy-protected documents, and develop custom extensions, plug-ins or applications. For example, you can develop extensions to protect custom file formats or integrate SDK with Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions. Extensions, applications, and plug-ins developed usingDocument Security SDK send documents to designated AEM Forms server and the policies areapplied on the server. Also note, AEM Forms document security client SDK (CSDK) cannot unprotect the documents protected using portable protection library (PPL) and vice-versa.
The Document Security SDK is available for both Java and C++. Java SDK is included in AEM Forms Document Security offering and it is installed on deploying AEM forms on JEE. You can contact AEM support team to procure C++ SDK. The C++ SDK can be compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio 2013. You can visit Document Security API documentation site to learn and use features the SDK.
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Adobe Acrobat: You can use Adobe Acrobat to apply security policy to PDF documents createdusing popular desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office, web browsers, or any application that supports printing in PDF format.
You can purchase and download Adobe Acrobat from Adobe Website. Adobe Acrobat article setting up security policies for PDFs provides detailed information about creating and applying policies in Adobe Acrobat.
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Document Security Extension for Microsoft Office: You can use the Document Security Extension for Microsoft Office to apply predefined policies to your Microsoft Office files from within the Microsoft Office programs. The extension ensures that only authorized people can use policy protected Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Only authorized users who have the plugin installed can use the policy-protected files.
The Document Security extension is available as a Microsoft Office plug-in. You can download the extension from Adobe website. Later on, you can visit Document Security Extension for Microsoft Office help to learn about installing, configuring, and using the extension.
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Portable Protection Library: Portable Protection Library (PPL) protects a document locally, without sending the document to AEM Forms server. Only security credentials and policy details travel over the network. PPL also allows you to limit policy retrieval access to only logged-in users. You can fetch policies with the context of the user logged in AEM user.
Along with above, the Prortable Protection Library has all the features of Document Security SDK. You can use Document Security SDK to access document server functionality, open policy-protected documents, and develop custom extensions, plug-ins or applications. Also note, portable protection library (PPL) cannot unprotect the documents protected using AEM Forms document security client SDK (CSDK) and vice-versa.
The Portable Protection Library is available for Java and C++ languages in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It is also available as an OSGi bundle for AEM Forms on OSGi. The C++ PPL can be compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio 2013. If you have licensed AEM Forms Document Security add-on, you can contact AEM Forms Document Security support team to procure Portable Protection Library. Later on, you can use Portable Protection Library Help (bundled with the library) to setup and use Portable Protection Library.