Last updated on
Sep 23, 2025
Learn more about the security options in Adobe Acrobat to protect PDF documents.
PDF security options allow you to control who can access, edit, print, or copy content from your PDF documents. By applying security measures, you can safeguard sensitive information and maintain document integrity.
Types of PDF security options
Acrobat Pro provides several methods to secure PDF documents:
- Password Security: Restricts access using passwords.
- Certificate Security: Uses digital certificates for encryption and signature verification.
- Adobe Experience Manager Forms Server (Document Security): Applies server-based security policies.
- FIPS Mode: Ensures compliance with Federal Information Processing Standard.
Password security options
When applying password security in Acrobat, you can set two types of passwords:
- Document Open Password: Required to open the PDF.
- Permissions Password: Required to change security settings or perform restricted actions such as printing and editing.
Certificate security
Acrobat offers robust certificate security to secure sensitive PDFs. It provides several advantages over password protection:
- Encrypts documents for specific recipients.
- Provides unique access rights for different users or groups.
- Allows document creators to receive notifications when PDFs are opened.
Security policies
Acrobat allows you to create reusable security policies to apply consistent settings across multiple PDFs. These include:
- User Policies: Created and applied by individual users.
- Organizational Policies: Created by administrators and stored on Adobe Experience Manager Forms Server (Document Security).
Additional security options
Acrobat Pro offers additional security-related capabilities that can help you protect your PDFs:
- Redaction: Permanently remove sensitive information from PDFs.
- Sanitization: Remove hidden data and metadata from documents.
- Protected Mode: Sandbox protection to prevent malicious code execution.
- Enhanced Security: Control access to external links and multimedia content.
