XML Digital Signature

XML Digital Signature Technology

XML digital signature technology is a combined effort of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The XML Signature standard assists signing parts of XML documents and providing end-to-end data integrity across multiple systems.
XML digital signature proves the nonrepudiation and message integrity of transmitted XML data across Web services.

XML Signature is the foundation for XKMS, SAML, WS-Security, and other XML-related technologies that authenticate using digital signature.

XML digital signatures are signatures that are available in the XML format and ensure authentication and originality of the parent document. A main feature of XML signature is the ability to sign a particular portion of the XML document rather than the whole document.

An XML Signature can sign more than one type of resource, such as a particular portion of an XML document, binary-encoded data (JPG), and character-encoded data (HTML).

XML Digital Signatures Types

There are three types of XML digital signatures:

• Enveloped Signatures: The generated signature is implanted within the signed XML element itself.

• Enveloping Signatures: The generated XML digital signature enfolds the signed XML elements, which it authenticates.

• Detached Signatures: The signed XML document and the signature are detached separately.