2007/11/29

Digital Signature for Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007 provides many improvements in security in comparison with its predecessors. And one of new functions is possibility of digital signature of documents. Signing a document, you confirm that you are the creator of document, and it will prove that a document wasn't changed since you created its creation.

You can create a digital signature for a document because of the same amount of reasons, on which you can affix your signature to a paper document. A digital signature is used for identification of digital documents creator (such as ordinary document, e-mail and macros) by cryptographic algorithms.
Digital signatures are based on digital certificates. Digital certificates are verifiers of identity issued by a trusted third party, called a certification authority (or CA). This works similarly to the use of standard identity documents in the non-electronic world. For example, a trusted third party such as a government entity or employer issues identity documents such as driver’s licenses, passports and employee ID cards on which others rely to verify that a person is whom he/she claims to be.

Digital certificates can be issued by certification authorities within an organization, such as a Windows® Server 2003 server running Windows Certificate Services, or a public certification authority such as VeriSign or Thawte.

Microsoft 2007 Office system documents can have invisible signatures or signatures lines added to them. When used together with other Microsoft 2007 Office system security technologies and security technologies included in the Microsoft Office Servers and Windows operating system, digital signatures provide another significant component of a strong defense in depth approach to security data stored in Microsoft 2007 Office system documents, workbooks and presentations.