DMPQ- What is a digital signature? - Jharkhand PCS Exam Notes

Digital Signature Certificates or DSC or Digital Signature are being adopted by various government agencies and now is a statutory requirement in various applications.

There are different class of certificates to help organization and individuals secure online transactions with legal validity as per the Indian IT Act, 2000.

A digital signature is a mathematical technique used to validate the authenticity and integrity of a message, software or digital document. As the digital equivalent of a handwritten signature or stamped seal, a digital signature offers far more inherent security, and it is intended to solve the problem of tampering and impersonation in digital communications.

Digital signatures can provide the added assurances of evidence of origin, identity and status of an electronic document, transaction or message and can acknowledge informed consent by the signer.

Principle

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Digital signatures are based on public key cryptography, also known as asymmetric cryptography. Using a public key algorithm, such as RSA, one can generate two keys that are mathematically linked: one private and one public.

Digital signatures work through public key cryptography’s two mutually-authenticating cryptographic keys. The individual who is creating the digital signature uses their own private key to encrypt signature-related data; the only way to decrypt that data is with the signer’s public key. This is how digital signatures are authenticated.