diff --git a/stream/mts/meta/meta.go b/stream/mts/meta/meta.go
index 1e4c72b8..7a863d0c 100644
--- a/stream/mts/meta/meta.go
+++ b/stream/mts/meta/meta.go
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ LICENSE
 package meta
 
 import (
+	"encoding/binary"
 	"errors"
 	"strings"
 	"sync"
@@ -49,7 +50,9 @@ const (
 )
 
 var (
-	errKeyAbsent = errors.New("Key does not exist in map")
+	errKeyAbsent     = errors.New("Key does not exist in map")
+	errNoHeader      = errors.New("Metadata string does not contain header")
+	errInvalidHeader = errors.New("Metadata string does not contain valid header")
 )
 
 // Metadata provides functionality for the storage and encoding of metadata
@@ -143,6 +146,12 @@ func (m *Metadata) Encode() []byte {
 // key is not present in the metadata string, an error is returned. If the
 // metadata header is not present in the string, an error is returned.
 func ReadFrom(d []byte, key string) (string, error) {
+	if d[0] != 0 {
+		return "", errNoHeader
+	} else if d[0] == 0 && binary.BigEndian.Uint16(d[2:headSize]) != uint16(len(d[headSize:])) {
+		return "", errInvalidHeader
+	}
+	d = d[headSize:]
 	entries := strings.Split(string(d), "\t")
 	for _, entry := range entries {
 		kv := strings.Split(entry, "=")
diff --git a/stream/mts/meta/meta_test.go b/stream/mts/meta/meta_test.go
index 0fcda13b..15789ebf 100644
--- a/stream/mts/meta/meta_test.go
+++ b/stream/mts/meta/meta_test.go
@@ -156,8 +156,8 @@ func TestEncode(t *testing.T) {
 }
 
 func TestReadFrom(t *testing.T) {
-	tstStr := "loc=a,b,c\tts=12345"
-	got, err := ReadFrom([]byte(tstStr), "loc")
+	tstMeta := append([]byte{0x00, 0x10, 0x00, 0x12}, "loc=a,b,c\tts=12345"...)
+	got, err := ReadFrom([]byte(tstMeta), "loc")
 	if err != nil {
 		t.Errorf(errUnexpectedErr, err.Error())
 	}
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ func TestReadFrom(t *testing.T) {
 		t.Errorf(errNotExpectedOut, got, want)
 	}
 
-	if got, err = ReadFrom([]byte(tstStr), "ts"); err != nil {
+	if got, err = ReadFrom([]byte(tstMeta), "ts"); err != nil {
 		t.Errorf(errUnexpectedErr, err.Error())
 	}
 	want = "12345"