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The terms digital signature and electronic signature are sometimes confused or used interchangeably. While digital signatures are a form of electronic signature, not all electronic signatures are digital signatures. Electronic signatures—also called e-signatures—are any sound, symbol, or process that shows the intent to sign something. This could be a scan of your hand-written signature, a stamp, or a recorded verbal confirmation. An electronic signature could even be your typed name on the signature line of a document.
A digital signature—a type of electronic signature—is a mathematical algorithm routinely used to validate the authenticity and integrity of a message (e.g., an email, a credit card transaction, or a digital document). Digital signatures create a virtual fingerprint that is unique to a person or entity and are used to identify users and protect information in digital messages or documents. In emails, the email content itself becomes part of the digital signature. Digital signatures are significantly more secure than other forms of electronic signatures. Why would you use a digital signature?Digital signatures increase the transparency of online interactions and develop trust between customers, business partners, and vendors. How do digital signatures work?Familiarize yourself with the following terms to better understand how digital signatures work:
Digital signatures work by proving that a digital message or document was not modified—intentionally or unintentionally—from the time it was signed. Digital signatures do this by generating a unique hash of the message or document and encrypting it using the sender’s private key. The hash generated is unique to the message or document, and changing any part of it will completely change the hash. Once completed, the message or digital document is digitally signed and sent to the recipient. The recipient then generates their own hash of the message or digital document and decrypts the sender’s hash (included in the original message) using the sender’s public key. The recipient compares the hash they generate against the sender’s decrypted hash; if they match, the message or digital document has not been modified and the sender is authenticated. Why should you use PKI or PGP with digital signatures?Using digital signatures in conjunction with PKI or PGP strengthens them and reduces the possible security issues connected to transmitting public keys by validating that the key belongs to the sender, and verifying the identity of the sender. The security of a digital signature is almost entirely dependent on how well the private key is protected. Without PGP or PKI, proving someone’s identity or revoking a compromised key is impossible; this could allow malicious actors to impersonate someone without any method of confirmation. Through the use of a trusted third party, digital signatures can be used to identify and verify individuals and ensure the integrity of the message. As paperless, online interactions are used more widely, digital signatures can help you secure and safeguard the integrity of your data. By understanding and using digital signatures, you can better protect your information, documents, and transactions.
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A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a combination of policies, procedures and technology needed to manage digital certificates in a public key cryptography scheme. A digital certificate is an electronic data structure that binds an entity, being an institution, a person, a computer program, a web address etc., to its public key. Digital certificates are used for secure communication, using public key cryptography, and digital signatures. The purpose of a PKI is to make sure that the certificate can be trusted. Public key cryptographyPublic key cryptography is an application of asymmetric cryptography. In asymmetric cryptography, two different but mathematically related keys are used to accomplish encryption and decryption of data. Data encrypted with one key can only be decrypted with the other key, and vice versa. Additionally, it is not possible to deduce one key knowing the other. In public key cryptography, the "public key" is meant for public distribution while the "private key" is to be only accessible to the key pair owner. A public-private key pair has two very useful properties:
Digital certificatesThe objective of a public key cryptography scheme is trust. A digital certificate is an electronic signature from one or more trusted third parties that guarantees the validity and authenticity of a public key. This certificate is the digital identifying proof that confirms an entity is what it says it is, as passports are identity proofs for citizens. There are two trust models used in practice: "Web of Trust" and central "Certification Authority" based. Web of TrustThe "Web of Trust" scheme is applicable in cases where certified entities are people. In this case people can sign certificates of other people they personally know or whose identity they have verified by official documents at a physical meeting. This creates a graph of trust relations and people can choose their personal trust thresholds based on that, eg. "I will trust any certificate that is trusted by at least two persons I trust". This scheme is most famously used by PGP encryption which is very popular for secure email. A strong side of Web of Trust is its theoretical simplicity and resistance to compromise by any one participant. However, its dependency on people following the right procedures and its lack of a dedicated central management makes cataloguing and especially the revocation of certificates complicated. Certification AuthorityA Certification Authority (CA) is a trusted third party specialized in issuing and managing digital certificates. A CA can issue a certificate to a client directly or, as it is often the case, authorise another entity to do so, thus creating a "certification chain". Using a central CA reduces the number of third parties necessary to verify a certificate and also ensures that proper professional procedures are followed. However, it also creates a single point of failure which can have catastrophic consequences when compromised, as demonstrated by the DigiNotar case. Page 2▲ More topics ▼ More topics Page 3
A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a combination of policies, procedures and technology needed to manage digital certificates in a public key cryptography scheme. A digital certificate is an electronic data structure that binds an entity, being an institution, a person, a computer program, a web address etc., to its public key. Digital certificates are used for secure communication, using public key cryptography, and digital signatures. The purpose of a PKI is to make sure that the certificate can be trusted. Public key cryptographyPublic key cryptography is an application of asymmetric cryptography. In asymmetric cryptography, two different but mathematically related keys are used to accomplish encryption and decryption of data. Data encrypted with one key can only be decrypted with the other key, and vice versa. Additionally, it is not possible to deduce one key knowing the other. In public key cryptography, the "public key" is meant for public distribution while the "private key" is to be only accessible to the key pair owner. A public-private key pair has two very useful properties:
Digital certificatesThe objective of a public key cryptography scheme is trust. A digital certificate is an electronic signature from one or more trusted third parties that guarantees the validity and authenticity of a public key. This certificate is the digital identifying proof that confirms an entity is what it says it is, as passports are identity proofs for citizens. There are two trust models used in practice: "Web of Trust" and central "Certification Authority" based. Web of TrustThe "Web of Trust" scheme is applicable in cases where certified entities are people. In this case people can sign certificates of other people they personally know or whose identity they have verified by official documents at a physical meeting. This creates a graph of trust relations and people can choose their personal trust thresholds based on that, eg. "I will trust any certificate that is trusted by at least two persons I trust". This scheme is most famously used by PGP encryption which is very popular for secure email. A strong side of Web of Trust is its theoretical simplicity and resistance to compromise by any one participant. However, its dependency on people following the right procedures and its lack of a dedicated central management makes cataloguing and especially the revocation of certificates complicated. Certification AuthorityA Certification Authority (CA) is a trusted third party specialized in issuing and managing digital certificates. A CA can issue a certificate to a client directly or, as it is often the case, authorise another entity to do so, thus creating a "certification chain". Using a central CA reduces the number of third parties necessary to verify a certificate and also ensures that proper professional procedures are followed. However, it also creates a single point of failure which can have catastrophic consequences when compromised, as demonstrated by the DigiNotar case. Page 4▲ More topics ▼ More topics |