What do digital signatures ensure?

Digital signatures play a critical role in ensuring that both data integrity and data authenticity are maintained. When a message or document is digitally signed, it includes a unique code generated by a hashing algorithm combined with the signer’s private key. This ensures that any alterations to the data after it has been signed can be detected, thus guaranteeing data integrity. If even a single character in the signed content is changed, the digital signature will no longer match, indicating that the data has been tampered with.

Additionally, digital signatures confirm the identity of the signer, thus ensuring data authenticity. This provides assurance to the recipient that the message or document genuinely originates from the purported sender and has not been altered in transit.

While confidentiality is an important aspect of data security, it is achieved through encryption techniques rather than digital signatures. Digital signatures do not encrypt the data; instead, they provide a way to verify who signed the data and whether it has remained unchanged. Therefore, the encompassing nature of digital signatures is best captured by the choice that includes both integrity and authenticity, solidifying that they ensure all of the above as part of their functionality.