EDS is an electronic digital signature. Digital signature key

Learn in detail about what an electronic digital signature is, why businesses and ordinary citizens need it, where it is used, what advantages it has and what is the essence of using an electronic signature.

An electronic signature (ED or EDS) is a digital analogue of a person’s signature and a special detail of a document that certifies that it belongs to the owner of the signature.

An electronic document signed with an electronic signature has the same legal force as a traditional paper version. Digital details are obtained using cryptographic transformation of information.

Cryptographic transformation of information is the transformation of component parts of information (letters, numbers, words, symbols) into an unnatural form. This is done using a special algorithm. The converted text is impossible to read, as it resembles a collection of unrelated letters and numbers.

The method of cryptographic transformation of information is used to increase the level of security of data transmission and storage.

An electronic signature is used for:

monitoring the integrity of an electronic document;
confirmation of document authorship;
protecting a document from forgery or modification.

If changes are made to the document, the signature becomes invalid and the document loses its validity.

The owner of the signature is determined by a certificate - a document confirming that the signature verification key belongs to the owner of the certificate.

Any person can be the owner of the certificate. To obtain it, you just need to contact a certification center. It will give out 2 keys - public and private.

The public key is needed to verify the authenticity of the signature, and the private key is needed to generate a signature and sign an electronic document.

Types of electronic signature

There are three types of EP:

Simple - the fact of signature formation is determined through the use of special passwords and codes.
Strengthened unqualified - ES is created using cryptographic transformation of information and using a private key.
Enhanced qualified – differs from unqualified by the presence of cryptographic protection.

According to the law of most countries, including the CIS, an electronic signature has the same legal force as simply a person’s signature with a seal.

Areas of application of electronic digital signature

Electronic document flow between legal entities and individuals

Digital signatures are used in various areas of business in the B2B and B2C segments for the exchange of documents. An electronic signature allows you to confirm the authenticity and legal force of a document and send it, via email or program, to a client, buyer or company division located in another city or country.

Using an electronic signature allows you to instantly sign and transmit finished documents to inspection authorities.

Individuals can use electronic signatures to certify the authenticity of documents, remotely sign contracts or work acceptance certificates.

Electronic reporting

EDS is used to submit reports in electronic format to the tax office, Federal Tax Service, Social Insurance Fund and other regulatory authorities. For example, in Belarus, since 2015, individual entrepreneurs have been actively transferring to electronic declaration. For this purpose, the taxpayer is issued special software and a key on removable media.

Arbitrage practice

In the process of disagreements between companies, documents certified by an electronic signature can be used as evidence in an arbitration court.

Internet bidding

For wholesale purchases or sales of goods, suppliers and buyers can sign any electronic signature documents. This signature is now actively used on government and commercial online trading platforms.

Government services

Anyone can obtain an electronic signature for signing applications, letters, documents and contracts.

When applying electronically to a government agency, by submitting a document signed by electronic signature, a person receives a response about acceptance of the application also with an electronic signature, which provides certain guarantees - the document has been officially accepted and will be considered.

Advantages of electronic document management with digital signature

Electronic document management has many advantages compared to the paper version.

The main advantages are:

Fast delivery of documents.
Reducing costs for preparing and sending documents.
Acceleration of business processes.
Guarantees that the document will not get lost in the mail.
Possibility of automating documentation processing.

Electronic documents are transferred between counterparties almost instantly, because e-mail is mainly used.

Organizations process electronic documents much faster, and accordingly receive money in the shortest possible time and have the opportunity to increase earnings by reducing the time spent on preparing and delivering documents.

If an organization is constantly faced with a large flow of documents, then electronic document management allows you to automate most of the processes for processing contracts, acts, reports, etc.

The use of electronic documentation for reporting simplifies the life of companies and entrepreneurs. There is no need to personally go to the regulatory authority - you can simply send the document through special software or by e-mail.

“A document comes to me for approval using the electronic document management system. I insert a medium into the computer (flash drive - author's note) with my electronic digital signature. You are prompted to enter a password. I enter it and sign the document. That’s it, the document has been approved.”

Valery Sabatovich – Deputy Head of the Republican Unitary Enterprise “National Center for Electronic Services”

An electronic signature simplifies a number of procedures related to document flow. Therefore, it is already actively used in business and government agencies. It is not yet popular among citizens. Mainly due to poor awareness of people about the availability and possibility of using such a signature.

Electronic signature - how to make this analogue of a handwritten signature yourself, encrypted using cryptographic transformation of information, we will consider in the article.

How to create your signature and seal electronically on your computer for free

In the age of information technology, paper documents are being replaced by electronic media. To give them legal significance, they also need to be certified with a signature and seal. In this connection, many users have a question about how to make an electronic seal and signature yourself. To answer this, you need to find out what an electronic digital signature (EDS) is?

Digital signature is information about the signatory attached to other information (the document being signed).

There are 2 types of digital signature: simple and enhanced. Reinforced, in turn, is divided into qualified and unqualified.

Simple digital signature (SES) is a signature consisting of a set of characters and passwords. A striking example of a PEP is the use of a bank card. When registering, a login and password are registered, and when making payment actions, the subscriber receives a code to the phone number registered in the banking system, which must be entered to confirm the payment.

Unqualified electronic signature - information about the subscriber, encrypted using a cryptographic information converter, which allows you to track the signer, as well as all changes made to the document after his signature.

A qualified digital signature has the same properties as an unqualified signature, but its mandatory attribute is a digital signature verification key certificate.

A simple and unqualified ES correspond to a visa on a paper document, a qualified ES is electronic seal and signature.

There are several ways to make a signature on a computer and certify a document with it. We'll look at what exactly they are next.

Creating a digital signature in Word

Electronic signature for free created in MS Office documents. Let's look at an example with a Word file. To certify a document created using Word software, you must perform the following steps:

Place the cursor in the place where you want to add a signature.
Go to the “Insert” tab and click the “Microsoft Office Signature Line” button.

In the window that opens, fill in the required fields.

The signature is ready and looks like this:

You can also add a signature from the “File” menu. To do this, open the document, click the “File”, “Information”, “Document Protection” button and select the “Add digital signature” function.

Next, fill out the form in the same way as shown in Fig. 2. However, a signature generated using the method described above is difficult to verify for authenticity. Therefore, many users choose the relatively inexpensive Karma software.

Karma program for creating digital signatures without MS Office

Karma software is a cryptographic software product developed by Russian programmers, which can be used in various systems of any level:

for legally significant electronic document management (EDF);
for working in the 1C system;
for messages sent by email;
for management document flow;
to sign files opened by Windows Explorer, etc.

A special feature of the system is the ability to add a graphic image of a signature and seal (facsimile) to a document. When using this function, a paper copy is practically no different from the original.

In addition, the sender can attach a sticker to the document being signed, recording messages, comments or instructions intended for the recipient of the document. At the same time, the software has an intuitive interface that does not require special knowledge from the average user.

However, the signature generated by the Karma program is not suitable for sending reports to the Federal Tax Service or for working on the government services portal.

How to create an electronic signature and register a certificate online

To make an electronic signature online for EDI with the Federal Tax Service, an individual must register in the taxpayer’s personal account (LKN). To obtain a certificate in LKN, go to the “Profile” section and click on the “Obtain an electronic signature verification key certificate” button. This key is valid for 1 year, after which the certificate is requested again. In LKN is generated electronic signature online for free.

This function is available only to individuals, which does not include individual entrepreneurs, private notaries and other self-employed people. In addition, the electronic digital signature received by an individual at LKN for sending reports to the Federal Tax Service is not suitable for working on the public services portal. To conduct electronic document flow through the government services website, a citizen must use a universal electronic card received before 2017, or an electronic passport (if available), and also purchase a special reading device (card reader).

To organize e-document flow with fiscal authorities and funds, as well as to work on sites intended for participation in tenders according to the law of July 18, 2011 No. 223-FZ, subscribers can obtain an EDS verification key certificate only from an accredited certification center (CA).

ATTENTION! To work on the government procurement website, according to the law of April 5, 2013 No. 44-FZ, EDF participants should receive an EDS verification key certificate from the territorial department of the Federal Treasury (letter of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation dated October 26, 2016 No. D28i-2792).

Registration of digital signature certificate

To generate a key, the subscriber must contact the nearest CA, having with him a complete package of documents:

Individuals:

application for a certificate;
copies of the passport, INN, SNILS of the individual who owns the certificate.

Legal entity:

documents named in clause 1;
extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRIP);
an order for the appointment of a manager or another document allowing a person to act on behalf of the entity;
other documents as required by the CA.

The certificate is usually recorded on removable media or issued on paper.

ATTENTION! Different certificates are issued for different operations. Thus, a certificate obtained for sending reports to the Federal Tax Service will not be suitable for working on the government procurement website under 44-FZ or on sites under 223-FZ, and vice versa.

The process of signing a document electronically

The process of signing a document with a simple digital signature does not require special knowledge. To do this, enter your password and confirm it.

Signing with a qualified signature has its own characteristics. Before signing a document, you must install the CryptoPro software or another cryptographic information converter and the EDS key verification certificate itself.

The installation algorithm is discussed step by step in the material “How to install a digital signature certificate on a computer?” .

Next, you need to endorse the required document. Approval algorithms vary depending on the type of file, type of editor or software. For example, to send reports to the Federal Tax Service or funds, the file is loaded into a special program, then the appropriate certificate is selected and the “Sign file” button is pressed.

Results

To give a document legal significance, you need an electronic digital signature - you now know how to do it yourself for free. The method of obtaining an electronic signature depends on the type of signature, the subscriber and the needs for which it is issued.

Topic “Electronic digital signature”

1. The concept of an electronic digital signature and its technical support

2. Organizational and legal support for electronic digital signature.

1. The concept of electronic digital signature and its technical

security

In the world of electronic documents, signing a file using graphic symbols loses its meaning, since a graphic symbol can be forged and copied an infinite number of times. Electronic Digital Signature (EDS) is a complete electronic analogue of a regular signature on paper, but is implemented not using graphic images, but using mathematical transformations over the contents of the document.

Features of the mathematical algorithm for creating and verifying digital signatures guarantee the impossibility of forging such a signature by unauthorized persons,

EDS is a requisite of an electronic document, intended to protect this document from forgery, obtained as a result of cryptographic transformation of information using the EDS private key and allowing to identify the owner of the key, and

also establish the absence of distortion of information in the electronic document.

The digital signature is a specific sequence of characters,

which is formed as a result of transforming the source document (or any other information) using special software. The digital signature is added to the original document when forwarded. The digital signature is unique for each document and cannot be transferred to another document. The impossibility of falsifying digital signatures is ensured by a significant number of mathematical calculations required for

her selection. Thus, upon receipt of a document signed with digital signature,

The use of digital signature ensures: simple resolution of disputes (registration of all actions of a system participant over time),

impossibility of changing the participant's application before the end date of the procurement.

In addition, digital signature contributes to: reducing costs for sending documents, quick access to auctions taking place anywhere in Russia.

Using an electronic signature is quite simple. No special knowledge, skills or abilities are required for this. Each digital signature user participating in the exchange of electronic documents,

unique open and closed (secret) are generated

cryptographic keys.

A private key is a private, unique set of information with a volume of 256 bits, stored in a place inaccessible to others on a floppy disk,

smart card, ru-token. A private key only works in tandem with a public key

Public key - used to verify the digital signature of received documents/files. Technically, this is a set of information with a volume of 1024 bits.

The public key is sent along with your letter signed with digital signature.

A duplicate of the public key is sent to the Certification Center, where a library of public EDS keys has been created. The library of the Certification Center ensures registration and secure storage of public keys to avoid attempts at forgery or distortion.

You place your electronic digital signature under the electronic document. In this case, based on the secret private key of the digital signature and the contents of the document, a certain large number is generated through cryptographic transformation, which is the electronic

the digital signature of a given user under a given specific document. This number is added to the end of the electronic document or saved in a separate file.

The signature includes the following information: name

signature public key file, information about the person who generated the signature, date of signature formation.

The user who has received a signed document and has the public key of the sender's digital signature, based on the text of the document and the sender's public key, performs a reverse cryptographic transformation that ensures verification of the sender's electronic digital signature. If the digital signature under the document is correct, this means that the document was actually signed by the sender and no changes have been made to the text of the document. Otherwise, a message will be issued that the sender's certificate is not valid.

Terms and Definitions: Electronic document- document, in

in which information is presented in electronic digital form.

Signing key certificate owner - an individual in whose name a signature key certificate has been issued by a certification center and who owns the corresponding private key of an electronic digital signature, which allows using electronic digital signature tools to create his own electronic digital signature in electronic documents

(sign electronic documents).

Electronic digital signature tools - hardware and (or)

software that ensures the implementation of at least one of the following functions - creation of an electronic digital signature in an electronic document using the private key of an electronic digital signature, confirmation using the public key of an electronic digital signature of the authenticity of an electronic digital signature in an electronic document, creation of private and public keys of electronic digital signatures signatures.

Certificate of electronic digital signature - a paper document issued in accordance with the rules of the certification system to confirm compliance of electronic digital signature means with established requirements.

Signing Key Certificate- a document on paper or an electronic document with an electronic digital signature of an authorized person of the certification center, which includes the public key of the electronic digital signature and which is issued by the certification center to the participant in the information system to confirm the authenticity of the electronic digital signature and identify the owner of the signature key certificate.

Signing Key Certificate User - individual,

using information about the signature key certificate received from the certification center to verify that the electronic digital signature belongs to the owner of the signature key certificate.

Public information system - an information system that is open for use by all individuals and legal entities and the services of which cannot be denied to these individuals.

Corporate information system - an information system, the participants of which may be a limited number of persons,

determined by its owner or by agreement of the participants of this

information system.

Verification Center- a legal entity performing the functions of: producing signature key certificates, creating electronic digital signature keys at the request of participants in the information system with a guarantee of keeping the private key of the electronic digital signature secret, suspending and renewing the validity of signature key certificates, as well as canceling them,

maintaining a register of signature key certificates, ensuring its relevance and the possibility of free access to it by participants in information systems, checking the uniqueness of public keys of electronic digital signatures in the register of signature key certificates and the archive of the certification center, issuing signature key certificates in the form of paper documents and (or) in electronic form

documents with information about their operation, carrying out, upon requests from users of signature key certificates, confirmation of the authenticity of an electronic digital signature in an electronic document in relation to the signature key certificates issued to them, providing information system participants with other services related to the use of electronic digital signatures.

At the same time, the certification center must have the necessary material and financial capabilities to allow it to bear civil liability to users of signature key certificates for losses that may be incurred by them due to the unreliability of the information contained in the signature key certificates.

2. Organizational and legal support for electronic

digital signature.

Legal support for electronic digital signatures should be understood not only as a set of legal acts,

ensuring the legal regime of digital signatures and digital signature means. This is a much broader concept. It only begins with the state law on electronic digital signatures, but develops further and subsequently covers all theoretical and practical issues related to e-commerce in general.

The world's first law on electronic digital signatures was adopted in March 1995 by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Utah (USA) and approved by the Governor of the state.

The law is called the Utah Digital Signature Act. The closest followers of Utah were the states of California, Florida, Washington,

where the corresponding legislative acts were soon also adopted.

The main goals of the first electronic signature law were proclaimed:

Minimizing damage from events of illegal use and forgery of electronic digital signatures;

providing a legal basis for the activities of systems and bodies for certification and verification of documents of an electronic nature;

legal support for e-commerce (commercial transactions carried out using computer technology);

giving legal character to some technical standards,

previously introduced by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU - International Telecommunication Union) and the US National Standards Institute (ANSI - American National Standards Institute), as well as the recommendations of the Internet Activity Board (IAB),

expressed in RFC 1421 - RFC 1424.

The law consists of five parts:

The first part introduces basic concepts and definitions related to the use of digital signatures and the functioning of digital signature tools. It also discusses the formal requirements for the content of an electronic certificate certifying the ownership of a public key to a legal entity or individual.

The second part of the law is devoted to licensing and legal regulation of the activities of certification centers.

First of all, it stipulates the conditions that individuals and legal entities must satisfy to obtain the appropriate license, the procedure for obtaining it, the restrictions of the license and the conditions for its revocation. An important point of this section are the conditions for recognizing the validity of certificates issued by unlicensed certifiers if the participants in an electronic transaction have expressed joint trust in them and reflected it in their agreement. In fact, the legal regime of the network certification model discussed above is fixed here.

The third part of the law formulates the responsibilities of certification centers and key owners. In particular, the following are considered here:

procedure for issuing a certificate;

the procedure for presenting the certificate and public key;

conditions for storing the private key;

actions of the certificate owner when a private certificate is compromised

certificate revocation procedure;

certificate validity period;

conditions for releasing the certification center from liability for the misuse of the certificate and digital digital signature;

the procedure for creating and using insurance funds,

intended to compensate for damage to third parties resulting from the unauthorized use of digital signatures.

The fourth part of the law is directly devoted to digital signatures.

Its main point is that a document signed with a digital signature has the same force as a regular document.

signed with a handwritten signature.

IN The fifth part of the law deals with the interaction of certification centers with administrative authorities, as well as the procedure for the functioning of so-called repositories - electronic databases that store information about issued and revoked certificates.

IN In general, the Utah digital signature law differs from other similar legal acts in its high detail.

The German Electronic Signature Act (Signaturgesetz) was introduced in 1997 and was the first European legislation of its kind. The purpose of the law is to create general conditions for the use of an electronic signature in which its forgery or falsification of signed data can be reliably established.

The Law contains the following main directions:

establishing clear concepts and definitions;

detailed regulation of the procedure for licensing certification bodies and the procedure for certifying public keys of users of digital signature tools (legal status, operating procedure of centers

certification, their interaction with government agencies and other certification centers, requirements for a public key certificate for an electronic signature);

Consideration of issues of digital signature and data security,

signed with its help, from falsification;

The procedure for recognizing the validity of public key certificates.

The German Electronic Signature Act is regulatory in spirit.

Unlike the similar law in Germany, the US Federal Electronic Signature Act is a coordinating legal act. This is due to the fact that by the time it was adopted, the relevant regulatory legislation had already taken shape in most individual states.

As can be seen from the name of the Law (Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act), its main purpose is to ensure the legal regime of digital electronic signatures in e-commerce. The signing of the Law by the President of the United States took place on the day of the national holiday - July 4, 2000 (Independence Day), which should give this legislative act special significance. According to observers, the adoption of this law symbolizes the entry of humanity into a new era - the era of e-commerce.

responsible for the functioning of its infrastructure. Without focusing on the specific rights and responsibilities of certification centers, which are given special attention in the laws of other countries, the US Federal Law refers them to the concept of digital signature infrastructure and in very general terms stipulates the interaction of elements of this structure with government agencies.

In Russia, with the main provisions of the Federal Law on

Electronic signature can be found in the example of the project. According to the draft, the Law consists of five chapters and contains more than twenty articles.

The first chapter discusses the general provisions relating to the Law.

Like similar laws in other countries, the Russian bill relies on asymmetric cryptography. The main purpose of the Law is to provide legal conditions for the use of digital signatures in electronic document management and the implementation of services for certifying the digital signatures of participants in contractual relations.

The second chapter discusses the principles and conditions for using an electronic signature. Here, firstly, the possibility is expressed, and secondly,

the conditions for the equivalence of handwritten and electronic signatures are given.

In addition, special attention is paid to the characteristic advantages of digital signature:

a person can have an unlimited number of private EDS keys, that is, create different electronic signatures for himself and use them in different conditions;

all copies of the document signed with an electronic signature have the force of the original.

The draft Russian Law provides for the possibility of limiting the scope of application of digital signatures. These restrictions may be imposed by federal laws, as well as introduced by the participants in electronic transactions themselves and reflected in agreements between them.

The provision of the article on digital signature means is interesting, which enshrines the statement that “digital signature means do not belong to the means

ensuring the confidentiality of information." Actually this is not true. By their nature, digital signature tools based on asymmetric cryptography mechanisms, of course, can be used to protect information. It is possible that this provision is included to avoid conflicts with other regulations that restrict the use of cryptography in society.

An important difference from similar laws of other states is

the provision of the Russian bill that the owner of the private key is liable to the user of the corresponding public key for losses arising in the event of improperly organized protection of the private key.

Another distinctive feature of the Russian bill is the list of requirements for the format of the electronic certificate. Along with the generally accepted fields that we discussed above, the Russian legislator requires the mandatory inclusion in the certificate of the name of the digital signature means with which this public key can be used, the certificate number for this means and its validity period,

the name and legal address of the certification center that issued this certificate, the license number of this center and the date of its issue. IN

In foreign legislation and international standards, we do not find requirements for such a detailed description of the EDS software, with

which generated the public key. Apparently, this requirement of the Russian bill is dictated by the country's security interests.

Mass use of software, the source code of which has not been published and therefore cannot be examined by specialists, poses a public threat. This applies not only to digital signature software, but also to any software in general, from operating systems to application programs.

The third chapter examines the legal status of certification centers (in

terminology of the bill - certification centers of public keys and electronic signatures). In Russia, the provision of electronic signature certification services is a licensed activity that can only be carried out by legal entities. Certification of the electronic signature of state institutions can only be carried out by state certification centers.

By its nature, the structure of certification bodies is

(EDS) is a requisite of an electronic document, intended to protect this electronic document from forgery, obtained as a result of cryptographic transformation of information using a private key of an electronic digital signature and allowing to identify the owner of the EDS key certificate, as well as to establish the absence of distortion of information in the electronic document.

Regulatory documents relating to digital signature

The use of digital signatures when concluding transactions is regulated by Federal Law dated January 10, 2002 N1-FZ “ON ELECTRONIC DIGITAL SIGNATURES”. The law proclaims the general provisions of the “rules” in electronic markets regarding the recognition of an electronic signature in an electronic document as equivalent to a handwritten signature in a paper document.

Attached electronic digital signature