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Preman30474911slc0
Participant
June 13, 2023
Question

Fake e-signatures?

  • June 13, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1164 views

A family member received a pdf of a legal document with fake e-signatures obviously copied from the internet - "Agnes Goodman's" e-signature is an exact copy of Marilyn Monroe's signature, and "John Fletcher" came out as Ben Franklin!

 

My family member refuses to believe he is being scammed and insists that Adobe Acrobat takes your written signature, scans it, and fills it in with something similar it finds online, so that it's possible it could use the signatures of these historical figures. 

 

Can anyone confirm that this is impossible to happen? It seems laughable to me.

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1 reply

adobi_wan
adobi_wan
Participating Frequently
June 13, 2023

Adobe Acrobat Sign allows users to type in their signature, draw their signature, and upload an image of a signature. The following signatures may be images uploaded. Additionally if a user does not have an Adobe Sign account and therefore is not part of their identity management system they have the ability to be whatever name they want.... including Ben Franklin, as Adobe does not have the ability to infure who the user is if email authentication is the only auth method used when sending out documents for signature. 

    P
    Preman30474911slc0Author
    Participant
    June 17, 2023

    Thanks, so a user can upload an image of a signature (as is surely what happened here), but there is no possibility of Acrobat doing this automatically on its own, is there? ie Taking your written signature, and substituting something random from the internet for it? This is what my family insists happened, not that he is the victim of a scam. 

    adobi_wan
    adobi_wan
    Participating Frequently
    June 19, 2023

    A key indicator for if the signature was an image vs was typed or drawn is the blue text under the signature. Imagesmwill not have the blue text below it showing the email/ date and time, while drawn or typed signatures will. If a user does not have an Adobe Sign account Adobe does not know its name and the user can type in whatever they want. There is setting configuration the sender can use to help with this such as requiring the user to authenticate via Adobe Sign (this would then pull the name from their profile in Adobe identitiy management system) or you can configure the following setting 'Require recipient name when sending from Adobe Acrobat Sign web application' and this will allow you to set the users name instead of them typing their name in. 

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