Considerations for Secure Electronic Signatures: Part 3
With digital transactions, security is a primary business-critical issue. In today’s climate with increased cyberattacks, it is more important than ever to implement stringent security standards. This will ensure your company fosters a trustworthy experience in the workplace and for your customers. The foundation of every digital experience is security. And it entails more than just passing an audit and installing an antivirus. Security scars are something that no company wants.
Organizations are speeding up their digital transformations, and digital document signing is an important aspect. Electronic signatures allow participants to sign documents from any location, and at any time. However, your digital signing process can be exposed to vulnerabilities if it is not properly secured.
When implementing a secure e-signature strategy, you need to ask questions such as How do I know who e-signed a document? How easy is it to tell if an e-signed document has been altered? How are electronic signatures safeguarded?
User Authentication
The forms of electronic signatures that can be used in the digital signing of electronic documents are defined by e-signature laws. A qualified digital signature, for example, varies from a handwritten signature in that it requires trust service provider verification. When it comes to security tactics and technology, the legal definition of an electronic signature always contains wording about signer identification. This necessitates taking into account the signer’s authentication, digital identity, and electronic identification.
- A secure electronic signature facilitates authenticating users prior to e-signing. This can include various methods such as requesting a user ID and password, email address verification, or secret questions and answers for validation.
- Following the evaluation of user authentication capabilities, the e-signature should capture authentication as part of the document audit trail and embeds the audit trail into the e-signed document.
Detailed Audit Trails
E-Signed documents with an embedded audit trail that can be validated and stored. The audit trail records information such as the history of contacts with the document, signer details, signer activity date and time, and so on. They may also keep track of the place where the document was signed. In the event of a dispute, all parties involved in the transaction have access to the audit trail and can work out a solution. This document is an electronic record that can be used in a court of law. By embedding electronic signatures, time stamps, and an audit trail directly in the document, you’ll have a self-contained, portable record.
- You need the ability to index, store, and retrieve the e-signed document in your documentation system that aids in meeting your company’s long-term retention requirements.
Documents and Signatures Security
A secure e-signature solution that uses digital signature technology to package and safeguard the final e-signed document. Technologies include using public key infrastructure or public key cryptography that can be applied to avoid tampering with the signature itself (at the signature level) and to prohibit tampering with the document’s contents (at the document level).
The intent is linked to the information that was agreed upon at the moment of signing with digital signature security. It also secures the e-signed document, making it impossible for unwanted modifications to go unnoticed. While some e-sign solutions attach a digital signature to a document as an envelope (once all signatures have been recorded), this is not a preferred method of document signing.
While the process is being performed, the document and signatures are left unprotected, resulting in the incorrect date and time stamp being placed on individual signatures. If a signer and a co-signer e-sign a document on two different days, you want the audit trail to reflect that. As each e-signature is appended to the document, the best practice is to use digital signature encryption. This constructs a detailed audit trail that includes the date and time for every signature that is applied.
- A digital signature must be used to safeguard the document.
- The date and time of each signature should be included in a detailed audit trail.
KRIS E-Sign with Audit Trails
When regulated businesses are subjected to a compliance audit, they are frequently requested to demonstrate the specific business process they used. Audits inspect when and by whom critical documents were touched as part of these processes.
The new KRIS e-Signature software for Singapore preserves a detailed audit trail of the signing process as it authenticates the signer’s identity and shows how a record was signed, whether via the web or mobile device. Together with KRIS Document Management System (DMS), you get additional security control and compliance standards at the application layer, in addition to using compliance procedures and frameworks for security and data protection at the data storage level. This ensures that the e-signature solution is safe and secure, and that customer information is kept safe.
In this 4-part Electronic Signature series
- Part 1: An Introduction to Electronic Signatures
- Part 2: Understanding Electronic Signatures and its use in Singapore
- Part 3: Considerations for Secure Electronic Signatures
- Part 4: Top 3 Trends & Benefits of Electronic Signatures
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KRIS e-Sign
Streamline Signing Process with e-Signature Workflow.
Expedite Document Turnarounds.
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