Comparative Analysis of ElGamal and RSA Methods for Digital Signature Implementation in the Integrated Service Unit Application of Universitas Malikussaleh

Abstract

The digital transformation of administrative services in higher education requires systems capable of delivering services that are fast, responsive, and efficient. Universitas Malikussaleh has implemented the Integrated Service Unit (ULT) application as an electronic administrative service platform. The implementation of digital signatures in this system requires the selection of an algorithm that can ensure document authenticity while maintaining efficient computational performance. This study aims to implement and compare the performance of the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) and ElGamal algorithms in a digital signature module integrated with the Universitas Malikussaleh ULT application. The main contribution of this research is the integration of RSA- and ElGamal-based digital signature modules into the ULT application and the evaluation of their performance in terms of computational time, CPU utilization, and memory consumption. The system was implemented using Python 3 and the Flask 3 framework. Performance evaluation was conducted using PDF documents with sizes of 500 KB, 1 MB, and 5 MB. Before the signing and verification processes, each document was processed using the SHA-256 hash algorithm to generate a message digest. Performance measurements were conducted over 30 iterations for the key generation, signing, and verification processes. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Shapiro–Wilk normality test, and the Mann–Whitney U test. The experimental results indicate that RSA achieves better performance in the key generation and document verification processes, whereas ElGamal outperforms RSA during the document signing process. Furthermore, the Mann–Whitney U test revealed statistically significant differences between RSA and ElGamal for most of the evaluated performance metrics (p < 0.05). Based on these findings, RSA is recommended for deployment in the ULT system because it provides superior verification performance and is better suited to the operational requirements of administrative services that prioritize the verification of electronic document