Digital Signatures
  • a digital signature of a message (which is produced by the signer) gives a recipient very strong reason to ensure:
    • message authentication - message originated from the stated signer
    • message integrity - message has not been changed

related: MIC

Digital Signature Algorithms

Digital Signature Algorithms

Description

ANY Keyed Cryptographic Hash Functions

(does not produce true digital signatures)

secure/keyed hash functions generating HMACs could be used in place of “digital signatures”, but does not protect against non-repudiation (where 1 of the 2 parties that share the same key could secretly sign a message and say it was signed from the other)

ANY Asymmetric-Key Algorithms

asymmetric key function can be used for generating digital signatures, and does not fail on non-repudiation

  • private-key - used to sign message
  • public-key - used to verify message

Digital Signature Standard (DSS)

DSS is simply a document that describes the signing procedure and specifies certain standards

Schnorr & ElGamal Signature Schemes

ElGamal Signature Scheme is a digital signature scheme which is based on the difficulty of computing discrete logarithms

Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA)

DSA is a variant of the Schnorr and ElGamal Signature Schemes

DSA is a cryptographic algorithm that generates keys, signs data, and verifies signatures

Digital Signature Attacks and Forgeries

Digital Signature Attacks
  • key-only attack - attacker knows sender’s public key
  • known message attack - attacker has access to set of messages and their corresponding signatures
  • generic chosen message attack - attacker choose a list of messages independent of sender’s public key)
  • directed chosen message attack - attacker choose a list of messages dependent on sender’s public key before signatures are seen
Digital Signature Forgeries
  • total break - attacker determines senders private key
  • universal forgery - attacker efficiently finds a way to sign arbitrary messages
  • selective forgery - attacker forges signature for a chosen message
  • existential forgery - attacker forges signature for at least 1 message. attacker has no control over message