What Are Digital Signatures?

A digital signature is a mechanism used to verify that a message, file, or other digital object has not been modified since it was signed. Second, it identifies the person (or persons) who signed the message, file, or other object.

You might be thinking, "Big deal!" You can make sure that a message or file hasn't been modified by making a hash of the message before sending it and then making a second hash after receiving it. You can then compare the two hashes to make sure that the message hasn't been modified.

To verify who created the first hash of the message, you could encrypt it using the sender's private key. This would mean that the recipient has to use the sender's public key to decrypt the hash before ...

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