What are digital signatures?

Digital signatures are an electronic stamp that can be used to identify the sender or signal digital document. Think of digital signatures as a digital equivalent of signature placed on a contract or check. Digital signatures use public and private keys to ensure the authenticity of the electronic document. The creator of the document will have the private part of the digital signature scheme, which is signed by the document encoded in the document. Then the recipient of the document would receive the public key of the digital signature scheme. This would allow the recipient of the document to know that the document was authentic and actually came from the sender. Sometimes documents require signatures personally to witness the signature. A few public keys/private keys allow verification of electronic documents. This ensures that the document that contains a private key is authentic and has not changed since the signature.

One thing to note is that the digital signature differs completely from the digital certificate that verifies the content on the third party website. The digital signature also differs very much from the signature of the e -mail. While the e -mail signature is a digital representation of sender names and contact information, it does nothing to guarantee the origin of the message or document.

Email messages can be signed with digital signatures to verify their origin as well as other electronic documents. The use of digital signatures will allow recipients of these documents to feel comfortable in trust that the document has come from the sender. This process can also help ensure that the document has not been modified since the shipment.