System and method for verifying digital signatures on certificates

• US 20060095388A1
• Filed: 10/29/2004
• Published: 05/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Brown, Michael S., Brown, Michael K.
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,139 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/67
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/0855 involving a third party
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/367 involving electronic purses or money safes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3821 Electronic credentials
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0894 Escrow, recovery or storing of secret information, e.g. secret key escrow or cryptographic key storage
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/50 using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees

Abstract

A system and method for verifying a digital signature on a certificate, which may be used in the processing of encoded messages. In one embodiment, when a digital signature is successfully verified in a signature verification operation, the public key used to verify that digital signature is cached. When a subsequent attempt to verify the digital signature is made, the public key to be used to verify the digital signature is compared to the cached key. If the keys match, the digital signature can be successfully verified without requiring that a signature verification operation in which some data is decoded using the public key be performed.

Claims

1. A method of verifying a digital signature on a certificate on a computing device, the method comprising the steps of:

a) performing a first signature verification operation on the digital signature using a first public key associated with an issuer of the certificate;

b) determining if the digital signature is successfully verified in the first signature verification operation;

c) storing the first public key in a memory store;

d) receiving a request to perform a second signature verification operation on the digital signature using a second public key associated with an issuer of the certificate;

e) comparing the second public key with the first public key stored in the memory store to determine if the first and second public keys match; and

f) indicating successful verification of the digital signature in response to the request if the digital signature was successfully verified in the first signature verification operation and if a match is determined at the comparing step, whereby the second signature verification operation need not be performed.

2. The method of claim 1, where the first public key is stored in the memory store at the storing step only if the digital signature is successfully verified in the first signature verification operation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the storing step further comprises storing a result indicating whether or not the digital signature is successfully verified in the first signature verification operation, and wherein the result is used, at the indicating step, to determine whether or not the digital signature was successfully verified in the first signature verification operation.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of indicating unsuccessful verification of the digital signature in response to the request if, at the indicating step, it is determined that the digital signature was not successfully verified in the first signature verification operation, and if a match is determined at the comparing step.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing device is a mobile device.

6. A software application for execution on a computing device, the application comprising a plurality of instructions stored on a computer-readable medium, the instructions for performing the steps of the method as claimed in claim 1.

7. A system for verifying a digital signature on a certificate comprising at least one computing device, wherein a certificate validation application executes and resides on a computing device of the at least one computing device, wherein the certificate validation application is programmed to perform steps of the method as claimed in claim 1.