Question

Please state: (1) the process of generating a digital signature, and the security objectives that can be achieved by digital signature (2) the process of generating a message authentication code (MAC), and the security objectives that can be achieved by MAC.

Answer 1

Answer)

Digital Signature may be termed as an action of changing electronic data in the form of cipher text for data security. It uses a accepted mechanism, i.e, a Public Key Infrastructure or the PKI and uses a cryptographic key pair. It is used to establish the identity of any person for any secured transaction. In other words it can also be termed as an electronic kind of a fingerprint.

Particularly, there are three phases of generating a digital signature. These are - key generation, which generates a private encrypted key which is to be associated with the public key, signing process, once the private key is received, the system generates a signature with a message that it is signed, and verification, it verifies the signature associated with the message and the public key.

The security objectives that can be achieved by digital signatures are :

• Less or no paper work, hence reducing possibilities of data tampering
• it uses PKI which is globally accepted providing enhanced secure features.
• the private key associated with the public key is secure with long term retention.

These are the various security objectives of digital signatures.