SecureBlackbox® 2022 Updates
SecureBlackbox 2022 reaffirms the strategic roadmap set out in version 2020 toward simpler, neater, and smarter components. Realizing the complexity of modern security technologies, we want to help our customers by making security integration a straightforward, fun, and hassle-free experience while still providing first-class performance and support for state-of-the-art security technologies.
In line with this strategy, SecureBlackbox 2022 expands its digital signature offerings by making wide-scale enhancements in the capabilities of its existing components, enabling their use in wider and more complex scenarios. These are only part of our digital signature framework, with JAdES support expected later in the year. The server components have also undergone significant refinement, became more intelligent, and with better support for virtualized environments and external transports.
Visit the Download Center page to download the latest version.
Contents
- Digital Signatures
- Certificates and Certificate Stores
- Server Components
- Supported Platforms
- Legacy API and Source Code
Digital Signatures
SecureBlackbox 2022 continues to follow the digital signatures market closely, striving to provide secure and efficient signing solutions at good value. With this release we are offering the following improvements in the signing components:
- PDF, Office, ASiC components now support "editing mode": the documents can be opened and worked on, before being signed and closed.
- Easier and more flexible access to PDF page information and widget look functions.
- CAdESVerifier now supports infinite-depth CMS tree processing, allowing work with nested countersignatures and timestamps.
- All Message classes now support authenticated encryption and HMAC signing.
- Certificate chain validation management unified across the board.
- Qualified properties have been split out from the primary components and moved to CertificateValidator class.
- The Distributed Cryptography component, DCAuth, now fully integrates with the general certificate framework, meaning you can pass your Certificate object straight to the component.
Certificates and Certificate Stores
The changes in the digital signing components are supported by improvements in the associated certificate handling engine:
- Re-worked API of CertificateStorage component allows simpler access to PKCS#11 devices.
- CertificateManager now fully supports certificate extensions.
- Support for non-exportable macOS keychains.
- Certificates can now be imported from X509Certificate2 or PCCERT_CONTEXT objects.
- Many improvements in the chain validation engine to support modern CAs transparently.
Server Components
The server components have also been updated to fit in more usage scenarios:
- Enhanced virtualization features in DAV, HTTP, FTP, and SAML servers.
- Added support for external transports via ProcessGenericRequest() method to HTTP-based servers.
- More flexibility for SAML server integrators through access to individual requests.
- Support for multipart requests and responses in HTTP server.
Apart from the above changes, all the components went through our routine review process to make sure they are well-capable in terms of modern security mechanisms, and their default configuration provides the best interoperability with third-party implementations.
Last but not least, we have introduced the Utils class, which is a helper class for a variety of simple development tasks. It offers a selection of format converting methods, string processing routines, and forward and backward IP address resolution functionality.
Supported Platforms
All previously supported platforms are still supported. In the future, many more platforms will be supported as well. At the time of this writing the supported platforms are:
- Delphi (plus NG/FMX and FPC/Lazarus)
- C++ Builder
- .NET/.NET Standard
- Java
- Android
- C++
- PHP
- Python
Legacy API and Source Code
As in version 2020, we continue offering v16-style API for existing projects. This is included free of charge in Delphi, .NET, and Java editions. Still, we encourage our users to stick with the new v2020-style API for any new projects they are starting. Not only the new API is simpler and would likely let you reach your goal faster, but it also incorporates the whole scope of our experience in the field and would save you from unnecessary potential pitfalls along the way.
Source code can licensed as a separate purchase. Please contact sales@nsoftware.com for details.
We appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this article please contact our support team at support@nsoftware.com.