Contents

 

• What is digital signature

• Types, Uses, and Benefits of Digital signature

 

There was a time everything used to get done with paper works physically. In today’s digital world people are more flexible and respond to a solution like a digital signature.

 

What is a Digital Signature?

 

A digital signature is equivalent to a traditional handwritten signature. A digital signature can be described as the electronic verification of the sender. Using a Digital signature the signer cannot deny that they did not sign a message and claiming their private key to the remaining secret. Even if the private key is exposed the signature will be still valid. A digital signature uses asymmetric cryptography (the public key algorithm is employed). Using Digital Signature does not encrypt the message itself.

 

History of Digital signature

 

Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman have given the concept of Digital signature in 1976 for the first time. They only guessed that such a scheme existed based on functions that are trapdoor one-way swap. Later on, the invention of the RSA algorithm by Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman helped to use primitive Digital signatures. Further continuous development was done to get the concept of Digital signature perfectly.

 

Types, Uses, and Benefits of digital signature

Types of Digital Signature

 

In today’s digital life the Digital signature has become an important and inseparable matter. According to the technology, the digital signature has three types. They are -

 

• Simple Digital signature
• Basic Digital signature
• Advanced and Qualified Digital signature

The digital signature gives the non-denial of the messages, authenticating the messages, and data integrity.

 

Simple Digital Signature

 

Simple Digital Signature is called to be in its simplest form as it is not protected by any kind of encryption method.

 

Example

 

 A wet signature is scanned by an electronic device and then it is affixed into a document

 

Disadvantages

 

• Simple Digital Signature has various disadvantages as it is not encrypted, it is incapable to show the identity of the signer or the changes that arrive in the document after it is signed.
• It is very easy to copy or duplicate too.
• It is not recommended in terms of security and legality

Basic Digital Signature

 

Digital Basic Signature does not possess many differences compared to the simple digital signature.

 

Advantages

 

The basic advantage of this category compared to the simple digital signature is Basic Digital Signature can show the changes that are made after a document is signed.

 

Disadvantages

 

• It still cannot guarantee the security of one’s identity as it cannot mention or refer to a verified identity.
• The documents signed with the signature under this category still don’t hold the legal power and the legal consequences.

Advanced and Qualified Digital Signature

 

Advanced and Qualified Digital Signature is the safest one compared to all of the above. It is made with asymmetric cryptography technology and public key infrastructure.

 

Advantages

 

• It is also able to show where when and what devices to use while the signing process when it's getting signed.
• It can verify the identity of the users who are applying. Even the Advanced and Qualified Digital Signature service providers need to confer a two-factor authentication before the signature on the documents by the user.
• There are also different uses of methods in this service like one-time passwords or biometric scanning on mobile phones.
• This category has an electronic certificate that is uniquely linked to the identity of the signer.

Uses of the digital signature

 

A digital signature is equivalent to a traditional handwritten signature. It is a mathematical scheme so that the signed documents can be verified. A digital signature can be described as the electronic verification of the sender. Using a Digital signature the signer cannot deny that they did not sign a message and claiming their private key to the remaining secret. Even if the private key is exposed the signature will be still valid. A digital signature uses asymmetric cryptography (the public key algorithm is employed). Using Digital Signature does not encrypt the message itself. The digital signature has important and different uses.

 

Who uses a Digital signature?

 

A digital signature is used for important purposes like software distribution, financial transactions, contract management software. For other cases, a Digital signature is important to detect forgery and tampering. It is popular with email users.

 

Purposes of digital signature

 

The digital signature has important and different uses. We create a digital signature to fulfill the following purposes. The digital signature mainly serves three purposes. They are-

 

1. Authentication: Digital signature makes sure that the receiver believes the message to be created and sent by the claimed sender.

2. Non-repudiation: Using Digital Sender the sender cannot deny the message having later on.

3. Integrity: This method helps to assure that the message or document is not altered.

How Digital signature works

The digital signing process includes the following flowchart-

 

 

Benefits or Advantages of Digital signature certificate

 

There are various advantages of using the digital signature certificate (DSC). The digital signature technology and the digital signature certificate (DSC) has become mandatory for some purposes. It is because of its revolutionary uses and benefits. Whenever someone needs to countersign documents it takes a lot of time to do the paperwork physically. It may take weeks to complete all these processes. That is a waste of time. A digital signature can do this job in minutes. Thus a lot of time can be saved with digital signatures. Thus it is a time-saving process that can be used for other important works. It is a paperless process also that is secure too. It is as valid as the one made with ink. It can benefit everyone from a common citizen of enterprises and through the government. Digital signature increases the productivity and efficiency of work while it can reduce the impact on the environment establishing the uniform digital market.

 

Message authentication

 

 digital signature guarantees the person who sends the message is his or hers who claims this to be. The verifier in turn validates the signature using the public key of the sender. He or She is then assured that the signature has been established only by the sender who occupy the corresponding secret private key and no one else.

 

Data Integrity

 

In the case of an attacker to access the data and modify it the digital signature verification fails at the receiver end. So the receiver can securely refuse the message assuming that data integrity has been breached.

 

Non-repudiation

 

Like only the signer knows the signature key, he or she can create a unique signature on any given data. In this way, the receiver can present data and the digital signature to a third party as evidence if any issues arise in the future.

 

Time saver

 

The digital signatures ensure that businesses save time with the documents and contracts signed off with a click only. It provides a huge saving on time especially when someone required to sign is in a geographically different area. Documents can be signed almost instantly and within minutes it will be done.

 

Cost Saving

 

 There are also some indirect cost savings like filing, rekeying data, archiving or tracking, etc. Other than this digital signature process is way more cost-saving. 

 

Workflow efficiency

 

As it is a huge time and cost-saving it maintains workflow efficiency. Its features speed up the work process.

 

Security

 

As mentioned above the authenticity and security is prioritized in this Digital signature technology. It reduces the risk of duplication or any kind of alteration of the document that is signed.

 

Legal validity

 

Digital signature possesses legal validity as well as it provides the authenticity and insurance of the verification of the signature. It is easily trackable and archived.

 

Better customer experience

 

As it possesses many advantages as a result it provides better customer experiences too. Overall it can be said a customer-friendly technology.

 

The digital signature versus the signatures on the paper with ink

 

An ink signature can be copied from one document to another by copying the image digitally or manually with significant technical skills. Producing ink signature copies that resist professional scrutiny is very difficult. A digital signature cannot be copied to another document. The digital signature on the last page will indicate tampering if any data on any of the pages have been altered which can also be achieved by signing with the ink and the numbering on all the pages of the contract that is intended to be signed.

 

 

 

 

Additional resources

 

• What is a Digital Signature Certificate?

• Creating Digital Signature

• Validation, recovery, and example of Digital Signature Certificate

• Digital signature & Digital signature certificate