Signatures and Verification

Signature verification begins when a subscriber publishes a certificate to a CA. Published certificates contain the subscriber’s identity and public key, and are digitally signed by the CA, which safeguards access to the subscriber’s private key. When a subscriber signs and sends a message, SME/KS converts the message to S/MIME format. The message now contains the digital footprint of the subscribers private key. When the message is received, the public key validates the digital signature created by the private key. See Figure 3–2.

Figure 3–2 Verification Process

Input parameters labeled with an asterisk (*) show the default values.