Processes of Using XML Digital Signature

Digital signatures using involves two processes, that are performed by the signer and the receiver of the digital signature.
To sign any digital asset, the signer first delimits precisely the borders of what is to be signed.
For the delimited XML Digital Signature information for signing term the "message" is used in current article.

For Digital signature or the XML Digital Signature creation a hash value and a given private key that are both unique to the signed message are used. To provide security for the hash value, probability that the same XML Digital Signature could be generated by the combination of any other message or private key must be very slight.

The XML Digital Signature verification is the process of

1. verifying the digital signature and signature software by reference to the original message and a given public key,
2. defining whether the digital signature was generated for that namely message using the private key that matches to the referenced public key.

Then the signer's software calculates a hash result value, unique to the message. Then the signer's software transforms the hash value into a digital signature using the signer's private key. As a result, digital signature is unique to both the message and the private key, that were used to generate it.
Usually, a digital signature is attached to its message and saved or transmitted with the message. It might also be sent or saved as a separate data element. A digital signature is unique to its message, that's why it is useless if it's disassociated from its message.

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.