Implementing Cloud Qualified Electronic Signatures for Documents using Available Cryptographic Libraries: A Survey

Abstract

According to European law (that also has equivalent national regulations across the globe), qualified electronic signatures have the same legal value as handwritten ones, so paper documents are replaced by electronic versions. As a consequence, electronic document flows a re r eshaping t he way people interact with governments, banks and other companies, enabling them to sign any kind of documents from the comfort of their office o r h ome, w ithout t he n eed t o v isit a physical branch. The overall costs are also reduced, as physical paper management is no longer needed. Remote digital signatures have the potential of adding extra convenience, as no more special cryptographic devices are needed to be own, managed, and use by the signers. This paper presents a survey of the methods one can use to integrate remote digital signatures into existing signing applications using the most popular and widely used cryptographic APIs and low-level and high-level cryptographic SDKs.