DIGITAL SIGNATURES AND VERISIGN

By:

Praveer Neeraj

MBA(IT) Semester-I

Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad

 

“When I took office, only high energy physicists
had ever heard of what is called the World Wide
Web... Now even my cat has it's own page.”
- Bill Clinton

 

This is the age where we are more prone to the catastrophe caused by Virtual World than by the real world. Long ago back in 1950, it was said that the next world war would not be fought with the nuclear weapons but by mouse clicks!!! Back during those days, it was beyond the mass conceptualization.

The current statistics of Internet users across the globe figures 1,463,632,361. Out of this figure 253 million users are from China. In this perspective, it seems quite probable now when we are more dependable on the Internet just to get what the real world consists of. In fact in a way, we are living more into the virtual world created by the Cyberspace. In this scenario where for everything and anything we enter this world, it is more of imperative that we should talk of essential security. Already, though, there have been implementations nationally and internationally of internet security protocols, still there is lot which is unaddressed.

One of the security tool being employed on the internet and a primary security measure taken by the world internet community SSL.

DIGITAL SIGNATURES:

Any communication taking place on the web has to go through a number of protocols on different layers and also through different channels and routes. To verify that these routes and destination is correct Digital Signatures are primarily being used these days. Digital Signatures are used to authenticate that the user is communicating with a genuine website. Generally these websites have a https followed by the website address. In the background, any website willing to increase its authenticity applies for Digital Signatures to the Certificate Authority (CA) or Certificate Provider who are further registered with the Domain Name Registrar. Before actually issuing the certificate, the CA procures the contact details of that particular website. Thus it actually entrusts the user with the confidence that he is interacting with a genuine website.

SECURE SOCKETS LAYER (SSL):

SSL is a Transport Layer Security(TLS) cryptographic protocol which provides services like security and data integrity for communications over TCP/IP. Though it has a wide-spread application, most frequently it can be seen working on web browsing and emails. The main function of this protocol is encryption and decryption of the data to avoid eavesdropping, tampering and message forgery. For this purpose it uses the cryptography and authentication.

VERISIGN:

Verisign Inc is based in Mountain View, California, America. It was established in 1995. It functions in the Internet and Communications industry. Its products and services include SSL certificates, Domain Name Services, Identity and Authentication Services, Global Consulting Services and Enterprise Security Services.