Business is booming for bogus degree certificates. As this lucrative black market produces increasingly "high quality" counterfeit documents - with exceptional attention to detail and remarkable similarity to the genuine article - academic institutions across the world are faced with a major challenge. How can they safeguard their reputation by ensuring the credibility and authenticity of the certificates awarded to their students?
The majority of universities worldwide currently issue paper certificates, which are relatively simple to forge, and can be near impossible for the employer to verify – a deadly combination for education fraud. The University of Malaya has taken a proactive and innovative approach to tackling this problem, working with Thales to pioneer the e-Scroll. This digital degree is digitally signed and timestamped, allowing it to be authenticated online.
The concept of a signature as a means to establish the authenticity of documents has been with us for centuries. However, as paper is steadily replaced by electronic documents,
new types of controls are needed. A digital signature serves as the virtual equivalent of a wet ink signature, verifying not only that the information originated with the signer, but also that it has not since been altered.
The security of the e-Scroll depends on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) – a technology that is already widely used across many areas. Governments across the world depend on it to protect documents such as the e-passport, while financial institutions use it to secure financial transactions and online banking. It underpins the security of the consumer technology world, supporting authentication of smart phones, tablets and games, and is the very foundation of secure e-commerce. PKI stretches far beyond user IDs and passwords, and indeed electronic versions of traditional signatures. A digital signature is generated and authenticated by public key encryption, creating unique credentials that can be validated beyond reasonable doubt and
crucially, on a mass scale.
Using a special purpose software program, the university converts each student’s particulars and credentials into an Adobe PDF e-Scroll certificate. Each approved e-Scroll is then signed by two parties – the Registrar and the Vice President – using GlobalSign Digital IDs in an automated batch signing process. Time stamping technology adds an additional layer of security, allowing the organisation to record when (day and time) the certificate was signed. The secured time stamps are issued against the Malaysian National clock by a Thales Time Stamp Server.
Digital signatures offer a host of potential benefits in addition to document security, including greater efficiencies and cost reduction through automation of manual processes. For the University of Malaya, it will also reduce the need to print expensive specialised paper-based certificates. However, this system’s reliance on public key cryptography means that protection of private keys is paramount. If the digital signing process is not adequately secured, attackers can create seemingly legitimate signatures over forged data, compromising the system and the organisation’s reputation. Thales
high assurance, tamper-resistant HSMs provide strong protection for the digital identities of the two signatories, storing their private keys and preventing unauthorised access.
Of course, security of digital credentials relies not just on the fact that they are hard-to-forge, but also that they are easy-to-authenticate. This is certainly true of the e-Scroll. The growing number of graduates applying for jobs online will now be able to attach this digital certificate to an online job submission, allowing prospective employers to quickly and easily validate its authenticity. This authentication can be done anywhere, anytime, and via any mobile device.
These high-strength cryptographic techniques are a powerful weapon against highly sophisticated forgers, who have been making a great deal of money selling counterfeit certificates. As of 2013, the 7,000 students that graduate from the University each year will receive an e-Scroll along with a printed certificate at their graduation ceremony – assurance of the strong credibility of their qualification, as well as something to frame.
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