What is a digital signature?
Digital signatures (standard electronic signatures) take the concept of traditional paper-based signing and turn it into an electronic “fingerprint.” This “fingerprint,” or coded message, is unique to both the document and the signer and binds both of them together. The digital signature ensures the authenticity of the signer. Any changes made to the document after it is signed invalidate the signature, thereby protecting against signature forgery and information tampering. Digital signatures help organizations sustain signer authenticity, accountability, data integrity and non-repudiation of electronic documents and forms. Watch video to see how a digital signature works.
A digital signature is basically a way to ensure that an electronic document (e-mail, spreadsheet, text file, etc.) is authentic. Authentic means that you know who created the document and you know that it has not been altered in any way since that person created it. Digital signatures rely on certain types of encryption to ensure authentication. Encryption is the process of taking all the data that one computer is sending to another and encoding it into a form that only the other computer will be able to decode. Authentication is the process of verifying that information is coming from a trusted source. These two processes work hand in hand for digital signatures. There are several ways to authenticate a person or information on a computer: The Digital Signature Standard (DSS) is based on a type of public key encryption method that uses the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). DSS is the format for digital signatures that has been endorsed by the US government. The DSA algorithm consist
Digital signatures are basically simple. They are a way of confirming the authenticity and integrity of a digital document. Authenticity means knowing who created the document; integrity means knowing that the document has not been modified since it was signed. The digital signature must provide the recipient of the document with a means of verifying authenticity and integrity, even if the recipient has never before met or heard of the person who signed the document. A digital signature is a code – an encrypted number – that is attached to a digital document. The way in which this code is generated, and the means required to de-code it, are what makes the digital signature work. For a more detailed description of how digital signatures work, see the help file documentation.
