Digital Signatures are signatures in a cryptographic form which helps the sender and the receiver to be assured of a tamper proof document exchange. There are two components to it namely a"Private Key" and a "Public Key". The sender signs the document using his private key ensuring the safety of the document as the text are in an encrypted form. The receiver on the other hand uses the public key sent by the sender along with the document to decrypt it into a readable text format. This ensures the authenticity of the origination of the signature and the signor and assures that the document has not been tampered en-route.
Digital signature addresses the P.A.I.N areas i.e
P - Privacy
A - Authenticity
I - Integrity
N - Non Repudiation
In India, the Indian IT Act 2000 authorises the Controller of Certifying Authority(CCA) to license & regulate the working of the Certifying Authority (CA) who in turn issues the Digital Signature Certificate(DSC) for electronic authentication of users.
1 comment:
Nice post. I recently came to know about this concept and was curious to know what these signatures are meant for and how they are different from hand written signatures. In this article you have provided an excellent explanation about these signatures. Thanks.
what is a digital signature
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