Cybercriminals impersonate the trusted e-signature model and ship pretend Docusign notifications to trick individuals into making a gift of their private or company knowledge
27 Could 2025
•
,
5 min. learn
Bear in mind once you used to should print, signal, scan, electronic mail and/and even fax each time you needed to signal and ship an official doc? In the present day, a lot of the laborious work is completed behind the scenes by cloud app suppliers like Docusign.
However like all tech manufacturers, as soon as it has reached a vital mass of customers, cybercriminals will search for methods to abuse it for their very own ends. Docusign claims to have 1.6 million clients world wide, together with 95% of the Fortune 500, and over one billion customers. That has put it firmly within the crosshairs of risk actors. Learn on to know methods to hold your workers protected from Docusign-themed phishing.
How does Docusign phishing work?
Social engineering is likely one of the largest threats to your small business. In line with Verizon, phishing is now an preliminary entry vector for 19% of information breaches, whereas a whopping 60% characteristic a “human aspect.” As a trusted and well known model, Docusign is a pure selection for risk actors seeking to harvest company logins and doubtlessly monetize assaults in different methods.
Victims will sometimes obtain an electronic mail with a spoofed Docusign “envelope” requesting that they click on on a big yellow field to “evaluate doc.” There may be an attachment that includes a QR code. Each actions may result in the identical end result: the sufferer is taken to a phishing website corresponding to a pretend Microsoft login web page, and requested to enter private and/or monetary data.
QR codes are additionally widespread as they require the consumer to scan with their cell system, which can not have safety software program put in to stop them from being taken to a malicious web page. Both method, a focused phishing assault like this might additionally allow risk actors to realize a vital foothold in company networks, in addition to for privilege escalation, lateral motion and knowledge exfiltration/ransomware.
Some examples
Over the previous few months, incidents have emerged of:
- “Reputable” Docusign envelopes that spoof invoices from suppliers, in a bid to trick firms into transferring cash.
- Faux bill scams impersonating US state and municipal businesses and designed to trick suppliers into wiring cash.
- Cybercriminals should not spoofing pretend Docusign emails, however as a substitute registering actual accounts with the corporate, and utilizing its APIs to ship out legit envelopes spoofing widespread manufacturers.
- Common phishing emails spoofing the Docusign model and taking the consumer to phishing login pages. These may mimic company HR and payroll departments, and even exterior entities like municipal authorities.
- Refund scams which cite a pretend transaction and attempt to pressure the sufferer into calling a quantity in the event that they wish to cancel it. As soon as on the telephone, they’ll be persuaded at hand over their private/monetary/card particulars to assert the ‘refund’.
Instance of a rip-off abusing individuals’s belief in Docusign for knowledge theft (Supply: Reddit)
Staying protected
Thankfully, there’s loads you are able to do to maintain your self and your organization protected from Docusign threats. From an organization’s perspective, the primary plan of action is to concentrate on the dangers and replace your phishing consciousness applications to make sure employees are in a position to spot the warning indicators of a rip-off electronic mail. Simulation instruments ought to be customizable sufficient to help this.
Issues employees ought to be taught to look out for embrace:
- Vacation spot URLs: hover over any hyperlinks/buttons in Docusign emails to test the vacation spot URLs are legit.
- Safety codes: these ought to characteristic on any legit Docusign electronic mail (within the “alternate check in technique” part) and permit the consumer to entry a doc straight on the Docusign website somewhat than observe hyperlinks in an electronic mail.
- Attachments: there ought to be no attachments in an preliminary Docusign electronic mail. Solely as soon as a doc has been signed will you obtain a completed model of it through attachment.
- Spelling, grammatical and tonal errors: are one other tell-tale signal of a phishing electronic mail.
- An electronic mail signature and sender title/electronic mail deal with that don’t match.
Layer up defenses on high of the safety consciousness piece by together with issues like:
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all company accounts, which is able to make it more durable for hackers to entry your knowledge, even when they do handle to steal your logins.
- Password hygiene, together with use of robust, distinctive passwords for every account, saved in a password supervisor.
- A multi-layered safety instrument from a good vendor like ESET, which, amongst different issues, detects malicious attachments, prevents customers from following hyperlinks to phishing websites, and permits directors to manually outline electronic mail filtering circumstances and actions.
- Up to date coverage to induce customers to not open attachments or observe hyperlinks in any unsolicited emails, and solely entry Docusign docs through the safety code.
- Altering inner enterprise processes concerning fund transfers, in order that any massive sums are topic to further scrutiny.
- Encouraging customers to report all suspicious Docusign-themed emails to your IT/safety workforce and to spam@docusign.com.
What to do if you happen to fall sufferer
If the worst occurs and an worker does click on by on a Docusign rip-off, you as an admin might want to work by a selected set of actions, together with:
- Reset passwords for the impacted consumer, together with any accounts that they could have reused credentials throughout
- Run a malware scan on the sufferer’s machine to detect and take away any malicious code
- Isolate the system from the community to include the “blast radius” of an assault
- Monitor the darkish internet for indicators of knowledge theft/leakage
- Monitor the sufferer’s accounts for uncommon exercise
- Dig deeper with forensics to know what the attacker needed and whether or not they managed to realize elevated inner entry
- Use the occasion as a studying second for workers: encouraging them to report suspicious emails quickly and to be on their guard normally about unsolicited emails
In fact, Docusign isn’t simply utilized by companies. You may need been uncovered to it in a private capability when shopping for a home or finishing tax paperwork. In that case, lots of the ideas above will nonetheless stand you in good stead. Digital signing apps are an excellent time-saver. However be sure to don’t get caught out by scammers exploiting your belief in these apps.
