Cybercriminals impersonate the trusted e-signature model and ship faux Docusign notifications to trick individuals into freely giving their private or company information
27 Might 2025
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5 min. learn
Bear in mind once you used to should print, signal, scan, e-mail and/and even fax each time you needed to signal and ship an official doc? Right this moment, a lot of the arduous work is completed behind the scenes by cloud app suppliers like Docusign.
However like all tech manufacturers, as soon as it has reached a essential mass of customers, cybercriminals will search for methods to abuse it for their very own ends. Docusign claims to have 1.6 million prospects around the globe, together with 95% of the Fortune 500, and over one billion customers. That has put it firmly within the crosshairs of menace actors. Learn on to know maintain your workers secure from Docusign-themed phishing.
How does Docusign phishing work?
Social engineering is likely one of the greatest threats to your enterprise. In line with Verizon, phishing is now an preliminary entry vector for 19% of knowledge breaches, whereas a whopping 60% function a “human component.” As a trusted and widely known model, Docusign is a pure selection for menace actors trying to harvest company logins and probably monetize assaults in different methods.
Victims will sometimes obtain an e-mail with a spoofed Docusign “envelope” requesting that they click on on a big yellow field to “overview doc.” There may additionally be an attachment that includes a QR code. Each actions may result in the identical consequence: the sufferer is taken to a phishing website corresponding to a faux Microsoft login web page, and requested to enter private and/or monetary info.
QR codes are additionally standard as they require the consumer to scan with their cell machine, which can not have safety software program put in to forestall them from being taken to a malicious web page. Both manner, a focused phishing assault like this might additionally allow menace actors to realize a vital foothold in company networks, in addition to for privilege escalation, lateral motion and information exfiltration/ransomware.
Some examples
Over the previous few months, incidents have emerged of:
- “Respectable” Docusign envelopes that spoof invoices from suppliers, in a bid to trick corporations into transferring cash.
- Pretend bill scams impersonating US state and municipal companies and designed to trick suppliers into wiring cash.
- Cybercriminals will not be spoofing faux Docusign emails, however as an alternative registering actual accounts with the corporate, and utilizing its APIs to ship out official envelopes spoofing standard 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 faux transaction and attempt to pressure the sufferer into calling a quantity in the event that they need 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 information theft (Supply: Reddit)
Staying secure
Happily, there’s lots you are able to do to maintain your self and your organization secure from Docusign threats. From an organization’s perspective, the primary plan of action is to pay attention to the dangers and replace your phishing consciousness applications to make sure workers are in a position to spot the warning indicators of a rip-off e-mail. Simulation instruments needs to be customizable sufficient to assist this.
Issues staff needs to be taught to look out for embody:
- Vacation spot URLs: hover over any hyperlinks/buttons in Docusign emails to test the vacation spot URLs are official.
- Safety codes: these ought to function on any official Docusign e-mail (within the “alternate check in methodology” part) and permit the consumer to entry a doc straight on the Docusign website slightly than comply with hyperlinks in an e-mail.
- Attachments: there needs to be no attachments in an preliminary Docusign e-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 e-mail.
- An e-mail signature and sender title/e-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 can make it more durable for hackers to entry your information, 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 e-mail filtering circumstances and actions.
- Up to date coverage to induce customers to not open attachments or comply with hyperlinks in any unsolicited emails, and solely entry Docusign docs through the safety code.
- Altering inside enterprise processes relating to fund transfers, in order that any giant sums are topic to further scrutiny.
- Encouraging customers to report all suspicious Docusign-themed emails to your IT/safety crew 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 means of on a Docusign rip-off, you as an admin might want to work by means of a particular 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 machine from the community to include the “blast radius” of an assault
- Monitor the darkish internet for indicators of data 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 inside entry
- Use the occasion as a studying second for workers: encouraging them to report suspicious emails quickly and to be on their guard generally about unsolicited emails
After all, 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, most of the suggestions above will nonetheless stand you in good stead. Digital signing apps are an incredible time-saver. However ensure you don’t get caught out by scammers exploiting your belief in these apps.
