How do I know if an electronic document has been altered, or that the Signatures are valid?
Once you download a signed document, you can open in Adobe Acrobat Reader to verify that the signatures are valid and the document has not been tampered with.
For documents that have been signed with our Contracts Only and Signature 21 CFR policies, as well as all ePhotocopy documents, MSB uses a certificate issued by Entrust as a tamper proof seal. Entrust is a member of Adobe Approved Trust List, so if your Adobe Reader has been configured with the recommended settings no further steps are required to validate the document. Simply open the document in Acrobat Reader and it will display a blue bar across the top of the document. The blue bar will display any messaging regarding the validity of the document. If the document has not been tampered with, the following message will display:
For documents that have been signed with a digital signature policy, such as Trans Sped you will see a slightly different message on documents that have not been tampered with:
You may click the Signature Panel button to examine more details.
For documents that have been tampered with, the blue bar will display a message stating that the signatures are "INVALID."
You may also see a message that states that the validity is "UNKNOWN" - this may not mean that the signatures are invalid, it simply means that Adobe Reader is not able to check. This can happen with digital certificates that are not part of the Adobe Approved Trust List. In this case you simply need to add the Certificate Authority to your trusted root so that Adobe Reader can check the validity. If you need assistance with this, please reach out and our support team will be happy to help.
For documents that have been signed with our Contracts Only and Signature 21 CFR policies, as well as all ePhotocopy documents, MSB uses a certificate issued by Entrust as a tamper proof seal. Entrust is a member of Adobe Approved Trust List, so if your Adobe Reader has been configured with the recommended settings no further steps are required to validate the document. Simply open the document in Acrobat Reader and it will display a blue bar across the top of the document. The blue bar will display any messaging regarding the validity of the document. If the document has not been tampered with, the following message will display:
For documents that have been signed with a digital signature policy, such as Trans Sped you will see a slightly different message on documents that have not been tampered with:
You may click the Signature Panel button to examine more details.
For documents that have been tampered with, the blue bar will display a message stating that the signatures are "INVALID."
You may also see a message that states that the validity is "UNKNOWN" - this may not mean that the signatures are invalid, it simply means that Adobe Reader is not able to check. This can happen with digital certificates that are not part of the Adobe Approved Trust List. In this case you simply need to add the Certificate Authority to your trusted root so that Adobe Reader can check the validity. If you need assistance with this, please reach out and our support team will be happy to help.
Updated on: 08/22/2023
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