Digital Signature

The Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act) dictates digital signatures as a means of authentication and security of electronic documents. Digital signature is an electronic token that creates binding between an entity and a data record. They serve the purpose of validation and authentication of electronic documents .Validation refers to the process of certifying the contents of the document, while authentication refers to the process of certifying the sender of the document. It can be said that a digital signature is an electronic version of a handwritten signature. The signing process is implemented with the help of public key cryptography; the signatory uses her private key to create a digital signature for a document. It is used to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is unchanged. Its varied nature has provided easy, faster, accurate and convenient mechanism for creating, storing, transmission and retrieval of data without involving traditional paper based formalities. This has increased the use of digital technology in day to day life which has led the world to go online that in turn has increased techno-dependency. Increasingly the business dealings, communication, official data and commercial transactions are being carried out in cyberspace. There has been transformation of world from paper based to digital based work. In the last few years, there has been a rapidly growing demand for a working digital signature framework for both public and public sector. The study revolves around the maximum information on digital signature, the future of Information Technology.