(SOA-)Security-Basics

My MT AG colleage Jan Quack just held a presentation about SOA-Security-Basics: digital signature, certificates and digital identities. I will publish parts of that here in the next weeks. I think this makes a good introduction into the world of signatures and certificates. It has some really nice examples, too ;-).

What is a digital signature?

A digital signature is a value which is computed with the help of cryptographic methods. It is applied with electronic documents and messages. This value allows to secure 2 different things:

1. The integrity of the message: Was the message altered on its way from the sender to the receiver?

2. The authorship of the message: Who composed the message?

... and how does this work?

Digital signature is based on two cryptographic methods, which are combined with one another:

1. Hashing

2. Asymmetric encoding

Part 2 will follow next week...