Author: Brian O'Neill

PDF file structure – unlike many other common document formats – provides natural, built-in protection for our intellectual property, ensuring unsolicited third parties can’t easily change or delete our content.

Despite this built-in file security, however, PDF files still do provide a meaningful way for document creators and viewers to interact and share ideas. The PDF annotations feature allows (authorized) viewers to provide feedback on a document’s contents by inserting new text (or other) objects at specific points calling out elements of the document’s original content.  

At this point, we’ve all heard the horror stories about clicking on malicious links, and if we’re unlucky enough, perhaps we’ve been the subject of one of those stories.  

Here’s one we’ll probably all recognize: an unsuspecting employee receives an email from a seemingly trustworthy source, and this email claims there’s been an attempt to breach one of their most important online accounts. The employee, feeling an immediate sense of dread, clicks on this link instinctively, hoping to salvage the situation before management becomes aware. When they follow this link, they’re confronted with a login interface they’re accustomed to seeing – or so they believe. Entering their email and password is second nature: they input this information rapidly and click “enter” without much thought.