Digital Security of Electronic Certificates

One of the key security features AWTA uses to protect the authenticity of Electronic Certificates is digital signatures.  These electronically secure the PDF files and are invalidated if any unauthorised changes are made.

Digital Authentication

AWTA uses a VeriSign digital signature to secure our Electronic Certificates.  Changing the file details or altering its content cancels the digital signature.  Hence it is a key step in establishing that the electronic document has been delivered intact and unaltered. It is present in every Electronic Certificate that we distribute.

Set up Automatic Trusting of our Electronic Certificates

This is required so that the Digital Signature can be verified and the PDF documents authenticated.  When the Certificate is opened, you must see the blue banner below in Adobe Acrobat Reader to be certain that the certificate is original.

The preferred way to get Adobe Reader to trust the Certificate is to enable integration with the Windows Certificate Store.  Once you have done this, Acrobat Reader will recognise any Certificate issued by a trusted root authority, which in this case is VeriSign.  Our current Digital Signature will be then authenticated and any future updates will be automatically trusted.

To set this up, in Adobe Acrobat Reader select from the menu bar:
    Edit > Preferences > Security > Advanced Preferences > Windows Integration.
Make sure that the "Enable Searching the Windows Certificate store" and "Validating Certified Documents" check boxes are both ticked.

You will need to do this for every user that is to check our Digital Signatures.

Online Verification Facility

Should you receive an Electronic Certificate and the digital signature is invalid or if you suspect that the document is not genuine, you can obtain another copy by using our Online Verification facility
(see https://www.awta.com.au/OnlineVerification ). 
Further information is available in the “Online Verification of AWTA Certificates” fact sheet on the website.  Alternatively you can contact us and we can quickly verify a Certificates authenticity.

The fact sheet can be downloaded in PDF format from the link below:

Digital Security of Electronic Certificates

FURTHER INFORMATION:

John Billing
Data Processing Manager - Raw Wool
Phone: (03) 9371 2134
Fax: (03) 9371 2190
Email: john.billing@awta.com.au