Cryptography
Digital Signature
Also known as: Cryptographic signature, Public-key signature
Definition
A public-key cryptographic mechanism that proves the authenticity, integrity and non-repudiation of a message or document.
Examples
- TLS server certificates are issued and validated using ECDSA or RSA signatures.
- Apple notarisation signs macOS binaries to assure users they come from a known developer.
Related terms
Public-Key Cryptography
A branch of cryptography that uses paired public and private keys to enable encryption, key exchange, digital signatures, and authentication without a pre-shared secret.
RSA Algorithm
A public-key algorithm by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman (1977) whose security rests on the difficulty of factoring the product of two large prime numbers.
ECDSA
The elliptic-curve variant of the Digital Signature Algorithm, standardized in FIPS 186, producing compact signatures whose security relies on the elliptic-curve discrete logarithm problem.
Cryptographic Hash Function
A deterministic one-way function that maps arbitrary-length input to a fixed-length digest, designed to be collision-, preimage-, and second-preimage-resistant.
Post-Quantum Cryptography
Classical cryptographic algorithms designed to remain secure against attacks by both classical and large-scale quantum computers.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
The combined system of policies, software, hardware and trusted authorities used to issue, distribute, validate and revoke digital certificates that bind identities to public keys.