License & Signing Security

Aug 21, 2026 · 352 views

A signing server is security-critical infrastructure, so OneSigner's licensing is built with the same discipline as its signatures. This page explains the mechanisms — useful for security reviews and for understanding the free certificate-bundled license.

Cryptographically Signed License Keys

  • Every key carries an ECDSA P-256 signature over its payload (plan, features, binding, expiry). Tampering with any field invalidates the key.
  • Validation is offline — no license server in your signing path.

Hardware Binding

  • Purchased licenses can be bound to a machine's Hardware ID (shown on the License tab). The key simply refuses to validate elsewhere.
  • Transfers are handled by re-issue through support.

Automatic Revocation (CRL) Checks

  • Once every 24 hours, OneSigner checks its license against the revocation list at onesign.sg — refunded, chargeback or abused keys stop working automatically.
  • Offline tolerance: a 7-day grace period, so a network outage never halts your signing pipeline overnight.

Thumbprint-Locked Free Licenses

When you buy a signing certificate through OneSigner Certificates, a free OneSigner license is included. To prevent abuse, that license embeds the certificate's SHA1 thumbprint allowlist inside the signed key:

  • Code signing is permitted only with the certificate(s) on the allowlist; other certificates get a 403. PDF signing is unaffected.
  • Because the allowlist lives inside the cryptographically signed key, it cannot be edited out.
  • Configure your code-signing profile to select the certificate by SHA1 thumbprint — selection by subject name or PFX file cannot be matched against the allowlist and is refused (fail-closed).
  • Regular purchased licenses have no allowlist and sign with any certificate.

The same allowlisting is also available server-side for AKV proxy mappings — a defence-in-depth option for shared signing servers.

Custom Public Domain per License

Licenses can include a public HTTPS endpoint for your server via Cloudflare Tunnel — a stable domain for your API, OneSignTool clients and eSign signers, with no inbound firewall ports. Configure it in the Custom Domain tab; contact support to set up a fully custom domain name for your license.

What OneSigner Never Does

  • Your documents and binaries are never sent to us — signing is local to your server (and with OneSignerBridge, local to the signer's machine).
  • Private keys stay in your hardware tokens; OneSigner has no key escrow, no cloud HSM, no telemetry of signed content.
  • The only outbound calls are license CRL checks and the timestamp servers you configure.