esign a document

03
Apr
2021

How are electronic signatures better than handwritten signatures?

Companies generate a lot of paperwork! Too much of it reduces your business efficiency, slows down data collection, storage, and retrieval, increases chances of errors, & has security issues. As more and more businesses automate their processes, the need to evolve from a handwritten signature to an electronic signature becomes increasingly crucial, fuelled by customers’ digital presence, demanding the availability of services from anytime, anywhere.

Handwritten signatures are swiftly getting replaced by electronic signatures worldwide due to their ease of use, quick return on investment, time saved on manual processing, speed, security, and verification by governments, banks, and regulatory authorities.

You can see the sharp surge in popularity for electronic signatures compared to handwritten signatures as per the latest trending data from Google.

Source: Google Trends

So, what makes electronic signatures better than handwritten signatures? Let’s find it out.

Supports Work from Home:

From public transport struggles to global health concerns, sometimes things get in the way of getting to the office and forcing you to remain at home.

How to make sure that your contracts and agreements do not get affected if you work from home?

Now, we live in an era when companies have made work from home compulsory. We look at some of the different ways that electronic signatures help keep your company going forward, no matter where you are or what department you work in.

- Close deals much faster as you don’t have to rush to the client physically for esigning the document

- Helps in employee hiring by automating & accelerating the employee agreement process

- Improves governance by centralizing the storage & management of all signed versions of the documents.

How to use electronic signatures while working from home?

You only need to install the esignature app on your device, connect with other parties to use the same. You would be able to create new documents online by uploading or using readymade templates. After that, you add email ids of signees needed for esigning the document by drawing, uploading, or typing the signature. Finally, you can send the document securely to clients, colleagues and speed up business processes without being present in offices.

Money and Time Savings:

Do you know that an organization spends 15% of its revenue creating, managing & distributing paper files for documentation?

Going paperless and adopting e signatures in a business helps you in so many ways. It restricts resources, workforce, and hardware equipment needed for procuring, printing, scanning, and mailing signed documents. The frees up time, allowing you to focus on essential tasks, saves processing time, and increases business response time, encouraging more cash flow in the industry.

Digital processes help fast-track business transformation by automating document flow, minimizes repetitive tasks to replace the time-consuming processes involved in manual capturing of data, re-entering data on machines, scanning, and storing it. It helps your team serve the customers more efficiently and create memorable experiences for them.

Electronic signatures need fewer resources like ink, paper, and postage resources. They support instant digitization of the business approval process. You don’t need to be in the office to prepare and esign a document. All necessary documents are ready online and forwarded to other signees in the online network. Electronic signatures apps empower you to access and esign a document using tablets, smart phones & laptops. So, you save a lot of time spent getting the document signed and sharing it with respective stakeholders without delay.

Enhanced Security:

A handwritten signature can’t assure you that the original document is signed by a genuine person as fraudsters quickly forge the signatures. Also, it is difficult to identify and authenticate the original signature from the fake ones.

On the contrary, electronic signatures only allow relevant invited parties to esign a document. If an online form needs esignature from other signees, the signer adds the signees’ email ids to access and esign the record on an esignature app.

Here are the details of the secure process of sending a document for esignature with the LunarPen app

  • Receive an email notification to sign a document on the esignature app
  • Go to the email and view the document shared for esigning
  • Verify the identity of the signee before esigning a document
  • Please review the document before signing it
  • Draw, write, or upload the signature
  • eSign the document securely

Electronic Record:

It is not easy to track changes in the document with a handwritten signature.

eSignatures comes with an audit trail feature to track every change in the document and capture details of when the document is opened, changed, viewed, and signed by a verified user. Audit trails maintain system activity and user activity records. It assists in detecting performance problems, flaws in applications, and security violations.

LunarPen audit trail helps you with all the tools to access, edit, send and sign the documents securely using the industry standard 256 bit HTTPS encryption. You can track all the details of the document right from

  • The time on which a user created the document
  • When the signee receives the document
  • When the signee consents to esign the document
  • When other stakeholders receive esigned document

Saves Environment

Around 40% of the world’s harvested trees produce papers. Even though the paper is recyclable, an A4 size paper requires 10 liters of water per sheet and emits methane, a greenhouse gas on rotting. Industry research firm Gartner estimates that as much as 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, copying, scanning, storing, transporting, and maintaining information files. Now you can realize the hidden costs of doing a handwritten signature.

Using an esignature for official work ensures:

  • No chopping down of trees for paper production
  • No paper wastage due to electronic transfer of data
  • Protects natural habitat of animals and earth’s natural biodiversity
  • Minimal usage of natural resources like water for paper production
  • Reduction in carbon footprint as esigned data is accessible from anywhere
  • Reduces electronic waste as you don’t have to buy printing machines

Indestructible Documents

Documents with handwritten signatures are prone to destruction due to mishandling, workplace accidents and can be easily lost, damaged, or forged. This forces the company and its workforce to leave the current prioritized task, trace the document, start every related business process from scratch, and waste valuable business hours.

Electronic signatures give a massive advantage to your business:

  • It is difficult to destroy documents in electronic format
  • Secure cloud servers ensure data is never misplaced
  • eSigned information is challenging to tamper and duplicate

Conclusion

There are many crucial business processes requiring signatures, such as the approval of contracts, invoices, and employee evaluation forms. Handwritten signatures slow down these processes as they are dependent on the exchange of paper and the signatory’s presence. Now you can see why electronic signatures fit better in modern business practices than handwritten signatures. They flawlessly integrate into an organization’s business processes and don’t depend on geographical boundaries and a person’s physical availability. They complement businesses in need of digital transformation, speed, safety, and security. Use the LunarPen to Fastrack and turnaround day-to-day business processes in a single click.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an electronic signature an original signature?

An electronic signature is just like an original signature done by the signer on an electronic device rather than on paper. Pens create physical signatures, while ePen, mouse, tablet, and smartphone create electronic signatures. They have the same legality as that of a physically signed document. As many as 60 countries have passed laws to make electronic signatures fully legal and permissible by law. e-signatures are legally valid in India for over 18 years. The Information Technology Act (IT Act), passed in 2000, granted e-signatures the same legal status as handwritten signatures.

What is the difference between a digital signature and an electronic signature?

Key differences between a digital signature and an electronic signature are:

Usage: Digital signatures are used for securing a document from tampering while an electronic signature is used for verifying a document

Signature creation: You have to seek permission from a certification authority for using a digital signature While an electronic signature is done as per the intention of the signatory.

Authentication: Digital signatures use certificate based digital ids while an electronic signature verifies identity through email, OTP, phone pin etc.

What qualifies as an electronic signature?

The ESIGN act defines electronic signatures as “An electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.” The versatility of its definition allows LunarPen to offer multiple solutions to capture an electronic signature using a smartphone, computer, or any portable device.

A qualified electronic signature (QES) includes all the secure features like

- Ability to identify and link its signatory

- Allowing the signatory to access & control keys for creating an electronic signature
- Identify if the data is tampered after its accompanying message has been signed

What does an electronic signature looks like?

You have the sole authority to decide the look and feel of your electronic signature. Most electronic signatures look like handwritten signatures. When you create an esignature with LunarPen, you have the option to

  • Draw your esignature using mouse
  • Type the esignature with a keyboard
  • Write signature on the touch screen
  • Upload esignature into LunarPen account
Posted by Lunar Pen in eSignaure Law, 0 comments
25
Mar
2021

Best Practices of Electronic Signature Security

Electronic signature security is one of the top concerns of digital transactions as more and more businesses empower customers to make secure and faster transactions on the web. When you collaborate with an eSignature vendor, don’t look for an eSignature service that is ESIGN compliant or has a particular security specification. We recommend you to take a broader view of the e-signature security that also addresses:

  • Selecting appropriate authentication levels
  • Making esigned documents tamper-proof
  • Easier verification of esigned documents
  • Reliability of records independent of the vendor
  • Verifying vendor’s track record of protecting customer’s data
  • Creating trusted experience through white labeling

Such a focused multi-directional strategy protects the organization’s reputation, reinstates customer confidence, and reduces the risk of non-compliance fines in electronic signature security.

To identify the esignature security requirements against which you should evaluate solutions, you should proactively check these security best practices before finalizing and working with an esignature vendor.

Best practices for implementing Electronic Signature Security

Identification, Authentication, and Attribution

Identification: The identification process identifies first-time applicants using two types of information:

  • Personally Identifiable Information(PII) like Driving license, Aadhaar Card, Passport number
  • Nonpublic Personal Information(NPI) like credit score, income, social security number

You get Verified PII or NPI information through third-party identification services. In this case, look for an e-signature solution provider that smoothly integrates with third-party identity verification services to establish genuine esignature users’ identities.

Authentication: Once a signer’s identity is verified, organizations issue electronic credentials to the users to facilitate secure digital transactions. The organization dealing with high-value, high-risk business transactions use robust multi-factor authentication services to ensure a safe environment and protect identities, data, and digital lives.

In this case, look for an e-signature solution that easily integrates with authentication services and offers a wide range of authentication options for a smoother user experience like:

  • User authentication through user id and password
  • User authentication using secret Questions & Answer (Q&A)
  • Using e-Sign sessions for verification of email address
  • Uploading identification images for e-sign transaction

Attribution: Use the attribution process to prove the identity of the person who clicked to apply an esignature.

One of the quickest and cost-effective ways to establish attribution is to use affidavits.

Take a case where the signer has to click a button to e-sign a document on the agent’s device. Just before handing over the device’s control to the signer, the device handling agent or representative gets an affidavit text confirming that the signer has received the esignature device. The affidavit text successfully captures the transfer of control as a part of the audit trail.

Another easier way is to send a one-time passcode (OTP) via SMS text to the signer’s Smartphone for gaining access to the e-sign session.

Document and electronic signature security

The security of electronic signature and the esigned documents are equally crucial for a signed contract.

There are several points for consideration:

  • Electronic signature and the esigned documents must be secured using the digital signature security technology that creates a digital fingerprint of the signed document ( called a hash) used for verifying the integrity of the signed records. If there is an attempt to tamper with the documents, the electronic signature is visibly invalidated.
  • If signers esign a document on different days, then a comprehensive audit trail should include each signature’s date and time.
  • All electronic signatures, timestamps, and audit trails should be embedded directly within the document rather than stored separately in the cloud.
  • It must be easy to verify that there are no changes in the signed record, independent of the vendor.
  • One should avoid e signature solutions that require you to access servers to verify the signature or documents. It can pose significant problems for you if the subscription services stop or the e signature vendor goes out of business.

LunarPen uses audit trails to store and track every change in the document starting from tracking the date of signing a document to change signs in the document and retrieve data anytime for legal purposes.

Cloud Security

eSignature solutions are available both on-premises and in the cloud.

The on-premises esignature solution runs entirely within the company’s network without the need for any external connection to keep the data on-site. On the other hand, a growing number of companies are adopting cloud storage to access documents for esignature transactions as it is speedy and cost-effective. However, it comes with several security risks like data privacy, shared servers, data leakage, and lack of data backups.

It would be best to look after esignature vendors that provide tailor-made secure storage solutions as per the organization’s need.

LunarPen understands these security risks very well and has partnered with leading cloud infrastructure service providers like Onedrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox to access documents securely and send them for e signature to respective signers and signees in a few seconds.

These cloud solutions follow world-class SSL and Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) encryption systems. With PFS, a user can’t reuse a private SSL key for sessions that have occurred in the past. Even if an unauthorized person gets access to the SSL key, it isn’t easy to decrypt older traffic, making cloud solutions highly safe for day-to-day business transactions.

Use white labeling to safeguard signing service & customers against phishing attacks

Enhancing customer experience is the prime focus area of digital transformation. Organizations often depend on third-party solutions to support their day-to-day business process. A slight mistake ruins customer experience, leaks confidential information, and endangers the company’s finances that can tarnish its image.

So, a company must safeguard itself, its clients, and the brand name by ensuring a safe and transparent online transaction process.

The best practice is to white label the entire e-signing experience so that only your brand is visible across the transaction and not the vendor’s brand. White labeling prevents fraudsters from attacking your valuable customers through phishing emails.

Organizations should look for esignature service providers that enable the use of white labeling in esign process.

As a responsible esignature company, LunarPen recommends white labeling in every aspect of the esign process.

The best esignature solution service provider should allow you to

  • Use the company’s email servers to send direct emails and not through third-party service providers.
  • Customize the brand’s logo, theme color & visibility of header, footer, navigation bar,
  • Personalize the content, look & sound of email notifications
  • Customize dialog boxes and error messages

Case Study: How Hackers used fake DocuSign email for phishing

Hackers used DocuSign documents to steal user credentials from all the major email providers.

The attack began when a user received an unknown email that appeared to be from DocuSign as it included its original company logo and the email content seemed like real emails sent from the company.

The email’s first line didn’t have any recipient’s name and only mentioned “Good day.”

Cofence, phishing detection, and response platform analyzed the email header. They realized that the threat source originated from an unknown domain narndeo-tech.com owned by Hetzner, a well-known web hosting service provider and data center operator in Germany.

Its researchers found an embedded hyperlink pointing towards six different options for users to enter their credentials and access DocuSign documents. Fake login pages were recreated for Ms. Outlook, Office 365, Gmail, and Apple iCloud so that users enter and reveal their original login credentials.

It is the best example of a phishing case where cybercriminals used a well-known company’s brand name to steal customer information using emails.

LunarPen strongly advises its users to be extremely cautious when using an external link on an email that asks them to share their user credentials.

If you are keen on learning more about the electronic signature security checklist, click here.

Conclusion

When businesses implement an e-signature solution, It is always advisable to take a broad view of the electronic signature security, starting from identification, authentication and ending with the solution provider’s ability to build trust and a smooth user experience.

Trusted service means stringent security measures. But at the same time, the security level of an esignature solution should not conflict with the customer experience. It is important to balance security concerns with the solution usability as over-engineering can negatively affect solution adoption and usability.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an eSign document?

eSign document means an electronically signed document in PDF, Doc, Xls formats. Such documents are signed using an ePen, mouse, or finger movement on any smartphone, laptop & Tablet securely using an e signature app protected by 256-bit HTTPS advanced encryption.

What is the purpose of esigning a document?

Its purpose is to authenticate and quickly identify the person who has initiated the written communication and ensure a secure exchange of information between different parties. The esignature made by an individual on the document signifies knowledge, approval, acceptance, or obligation.

What are the benefits of an electronic signature?

These are the significant benefits of using electronic signature:

1) Save Costs: Save time in doing paperwork, printing, scanning, mailing, delivering, and storing the document
2) Save Time: Saves you from age-old rituals of paperwork. Going digital saves a lot of time, allowing you to focus on other essential tasks.
3) Legal Compliance: Electronic signatures are legally binded and acceptable all over the world.
4) Mobility: A significant advantage of eSignatures is helping businesses function irrespective of location & time.

How can I eSign documents for free?

Follow these simple steps to eSign a document for free:

Step 1: Click LunarPen to open a free account
Step 2: Create or upload a document using templates, Google Drive & Dropbox
Step 3: Use the signed document sharing feature
Step 5: Send the document for signature
Step 6: Use the LunarPen interface to esign your documents for free
Step 7: Receive signed documents by email

Posted by Lunar Pen in eSignaure Law, 0 comments