Digital Signing
- HOME
- User Guide
- Digital Signing
|
This page provides necessary information about how to use digital signatures. It explains the digital certificate and how it is used in digital signature. |
Selection Tabs Group of Issuance Guide Category Information
| Digital Certificate | What is the Digital Signature? |
What is Certificate?
- Digital Certificate
- A digital certificate is a holder of a public key that binds the identity of the certificate owner to a pair of electronic encryption keys, that can be used to encrypt and digitally sign information.
The main purpose of the digital certificate is to ensure that the public key contained in the certificate belongs to the entity to which the certificate was issued.
- What is the Certificate Authority?
- A certificate Authority (CA) is a trusted organization that acts to verify the identities of entities and bind them to cryptographic keys through the issuance of digital certificates (DC). CA should be trusted by the owner of the DC and the party relying upon the DC. Government Certification Authority (GovCA) is the first Certificate Authority in Rwanda.
What is Certificate?
- What is the Digital Signature?
- A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for verifying the authenticity of digital messages or documents. A valid digital signature, where the prerequisites are satisfied, gives a recipient very strong reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender (authentication), and that the message was not altered in transit (integrity).
- How to Use Digital Signature?
- When an entity digitally signs a document, the digital signature is created using the entity’s private key, which is always securely kept by the entity. The mathematical algorithm acts like a cipher, creating data matching the signed document, called a hash, and encrypting that data. The resulting encrypted data is the digital signature. The signature is also marked with the time that the document was signed. If the document changes after signing, the digital signature is invalidated.
It is very important to check the signature validity before trusting the received information.
