Secure update propagation with digital signatures
AssigneePQShield Ltd
InventorsShuichi Katsumata, Thomas Prest
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Certain examples described herein relate to secure update propagation. The examples present systems and methods to transmit data in the form of updates over a network and to ensure the authenticity of the updates. The examples use a set-homomorphic digital signature scheme to sign updates such that a combined digital signature may be used to verify a batch of updates in place of a set of individual digital signatures. The combined digital signature may be generated by aggregating individual digital signatures.
Claims24
A method of securely propagating updates, the method comprising:
- publishing, at a distributor, a plurality of updates, each update being signed to generate an associated digital signature for the update;
- receiving, at a subscriber, update data for the plurality of updates and a combined digital signature, the combined digital signature being a combination of a plurality of digital signatures for the plurality of updates;
- and
- verifying the plurality of updates using the combined digital signature,
- wherein the plurality of digital signatures and the combined digital signature are generated using a set-homomorphic digital signature scheme,
- wherein, within the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme, a signature of a union of a first message and a second message is equal to an associative and commutative binary operation applied to a first signature of the first message and a second signature of the second message.
A method of securely publishing updates, the method comprising:
- preparing a first update;
- signing the first update according to a set-homomorphic digital signature scheme to generate a first digital signature;
- publishing the first update;
- preparing a second update;
- signing the second update according to the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme to generate a second digital signature;
- and
- publishing the second update,
- wherein the first and second updates are verifiable by a subscriber using a combined digital signature generated according to the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme, the combined digital signature being generated by combining the first and second digital signatures, the combined digital signature being useable in place of the first and second digital signatures,
- wherein the method further comprises:
- generating a key pair for the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme, the key pair comprising a public key and a secret key;
- and
- publishing the public key;
- wherein signing the first update and signing the second update comprises:
- signing update data using a signing function of the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme, the signing function being a function of the update data and the secret key.
A method of securely verifying updates, the method comprising:
- receiving update data comprising a plurality of updates, each update being published with an associated digital signature for verification, a plurality of associated digital signatures for the updates being generated according to a set-homomorphic digital signature scheme;
- receiving a combined digital signature generated according to the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme, the combined digital signature being generated by combining the plurality of associated digital signatures;
- and
- verifying the update data using the combined digital signature in place of the plurality of digital signatures
- wherein, within the set-homomorphic digital signature scheme, a signature of a union of a first message and a second message is equal to an associative and commutative binary operation applied to a first signature of the first message and a second signature of the second message.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.