ABSTRACT
This e note aims to provide a broad review of network security and cryptography, with particular regard to digital signatures. Network security and cryptography is a subject too wide ranging to coverage about how to protect information in digital form and to provide security services. However, a general overview of network security and cryptography is provided and various algorithms are discussed. A detailed review of the subject of network security and cryptography in digital signatures is then presented. The purpose of a digital signature is to provide a means for an entity to bind its identity to a piece of information. The common attacks on digital signature was reviewed. The first method was the RSA signature scheme, which remains today one of the most practical and versatile techniques available. Fiat-Shamir signature schemes, DSA and related signature schemes are two other methods reviewed. Digital signatures have many applications in information security, including authentication, data integrity, and non-repudiation was reviewed.
INTRODUCTION
The objective of this paper is to provide the reader with an insight into recent
developments in the field of network security and cryptography, with particular regard to digital signatures .cryptography was used as a tool to protect national secrets and strategies. The proliferation of computers and communications systems in the 1960s brought with it a demand from the private sector for means to protect information in digital form and to provide security services. DES, the Data Encryption Standard, is the most well-known cryptographic mechanism. It remains the standard means for securing electronic commerce for many financial institutions around the world. The most striking development in the history of cryptography came in 1976 when Diffie and Hellman published New Directions in Cryptography.
A digital signature of a message is a number dependent on some secret known only to the signer, and, additionally, on the content of the message being signed. Signatures must be verifiable; if a dispute arises as to whether a party signed a document (caused by either a lying signer trying to repudiate a signature it did create, or a fraudulent claimant), an unbiased third party should be able to resolve the matter equitably, without requiring access to the signer’s secret information (private key).
The first method discovered was the RSA signature scheme,Which remains today one of the most practical and versatile techniques available. Sub-sequent research has resulted in many alternative digital signature techniques. The Feige-Fiat-Shamir signature scheme requires a one-way hash function.
Information security and cryptography
Cryptography, an understanding of issues related to information security in general is necessary. Information security manifests itself in many ways according to the situation and requirement. Over the centuries, an elaborate set of protocols and mechanisms has been created to deal with information security issues when the information is conveyed by physical documents. Often the objectives of information security cannot solely be achieved through mathematical algorithms and protocols alone, but require procedural techniques and abidance of laws to achieve.The concept of information will be taken to be an understood quantity. For example, privacy of letters is provided by sealed envelopes delivered by an accepted mail service.
