Digital Signatures with External Server (HSM) Using Aspose.PDF

Aspose.PDF Product Family
1

Hi,

Can Aspose.PDF help with setting a digital signature on PDFs when the signing is performed by an external server (such as an HSM)?
The idea is to compute the hash of the PDF locally, send the hash to the HSM for signing, and then apply the returned signature back into the PDF.

Thanks,
Yaron

2

@yaronz

Aspose.PDF for .NET currently supports signing PDF files using smart cards and certificates. However, the capability to sign PDFs with an external Hardware Security Module (HSM) is not fully established at this time, and further investigation into this feature is needed.

To implement your desired workflow—where you compute the hash of the PDF locally, send it to the HSM for signing, and then apply the returned signature back into the PDF—you may need to provide additional details about the HSM or server you are using. This information could help in logging an investigation ticket to explore this functionality further.

For more information on signing PDFs, you can refer to the following documentation articles:

If you have any specific HSM in mind, please share those details for a more tailored response.

3

Hi,

Thank you for your quick and detailed response.

We are considering using our own servers for the signing process instead of relying on cloud services like AWS or GCP.
Is this approach feasible with Aspose.PDF?

Thanks again for your support.

Best regards,
Yaron

4

@yaronz

We need to investigate the feasibility of this feature. Can you please confirm if you are using .NET or Java API? We will log an investigation ticket and share the ID with you.

5

Hi

I’m using .NET

Yaron,

6

@yaronz

We have opened the following new ticket(s) in our internal issue tracking system and will deliver their fixes according to the terms mentioned in Free Support Policies.

Issue ID(s): PDFNET-59787

You can obtain Paid Support Services if you need support on a priority basis, along with the direct access to our Paid Support management team.

7

Thank you
What about generating the hash of the document
is it possible with Aspose.PDF?

Yaron

8

@yaronz

We need to investigate against this entire functionality, that is why we have registered an investigation ticket. We will go through the details and analyze it accordingly. As soon as it is resolved, we will inform you via this forum thread. Please be patient and spare us some time.

We are sorry for the inconvenience.