Evaluating the security of an e-signature platform means examining its ability to protect signers' identities, document integrity and data confidentiality, and verifying its compliance with national cybersecurity and data protection frameworks. A security officer usually starts with specific questions: Who licenses the platform? Where is the data stored? How is identity verified? How are keys and documents protected? What does the audit trail record? Documented answers to these questions are what separate a platform you can rely on for sensitive contracts from a generic signing tool.

We wrote this article for cybersecurity officers and technical managers who are asked to evaluate a signature platform before their organization adopts it. It presents ten practical questions, each with what to look for in the provider's answer, followed by common evaluation mistakes and the steps for organizing the evaluation.

Quick summary

Why does a security officer need to evaluate the signature platform themselves?

A security officer needs to evaluate it because the signature platform holds the organization's most sensitive documents, processes signers' identity data, and serves as the evidence the organization relies on in a dispute. Any vulnerability in it affects contracts, reputation and compliance all at once.

Many organizations move to e-signatures on a decision by legal or operations, and the security team is then asked for approval at a late stage. It is better for security to get involved early, with a clear list of questions sent to providers as part of the request for proposals.

Expectations in the Kingdom are rising as the national cybersecurity ecosystem matures. The Kingdom retained first place globally in the cybersecurity index of the World Competitiveness Yearbook published by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), and the International Telecommunication Union ranked it in the top tier of the Global Cybersecurity Index 2024. This makes compliance with national controls a core criterion when choosing any provider.

What are the ten questions for evaluating signature platform security?

The ten questions cover licensing, identity, encryption, keys, data, access, auditing, testing, incident response and connected services. For each, the provider is expected to give a documented answer.

1. Is the platform a locally licensed trust service provider?

This is the first question because a license from the Digital Government Authority places signing services within a local regulatory framework subject to requirements and ongoing audits. Ask for the license number, its scope and its validity date. To learn more, see our article on the licensed trust service provider.

2. Where are the data and backups hosted?

Ask which country hosts the primary servers, where backups and disaster recovery sites are located, and where system logs are kept. Hosting the database locally is not enough if the backups are abroad, because transferring personal data outside the Kingdom is subject to the conditions of the Personal Data Protection Law.

3. How is the signer's identity verified?

A signature is only as strong as the identity verification that precedes it. Look for options linked to the national identity, such as Nafath and Absher, and for the ability to choose the verification level according to the document's sensitivity.

4. How are documents protected in transit and at rest?

Ask about encryption of the connection between the user and the platform, encryption of stored documents, and how encryption keys are managed and who can access them. An acceptable answer specifies the mechanisms and standards used, rather than simply saying "your data is encrypted".

5. How are signing keys protected?

In digital signatures, the signer's private key is the core of trust. Ask whether keys are generated and stored in hardware security modules (HSM), dedicated devices the key never leaves, and how the key is activated after user authentication. For the difference between a certificate and a signature, see our article on the difference between a digital signature and a digital certificate.

6. How are access permissions managed within the platform?

Ask about the roles and permissions available to the organization's users, support for multi-factor authentication, and the ability to integrate with the organization's identity management system. Also ask about the permissions of the provider's own staff: who among them can access customer data, when, and how that access is logged.

7. What does the audit trail record?

The audit trail is your evidence in disputes and investigations. Ask for an actual sample, and make sure it records who signed, when and from which device, as well as every open, edit and send action, and that it is protected against modification. Test in practice that any change to the document after signing shows up on verification.

8. Which security certifications and controls are in place?

Ask about information security certifications, such as ISO 27001, and about compliance with the Essential Cybersecurity Controls (ECC) and the Cloud Cybersecurity Controls (CCC) issued by the National Cybersecurity Authority. Request proof of the certifications' validity and scope.

9. How is security tested, and how are incidents handled?

Ask how often penetration tests are performed and who performs them, about the incident response plan, and about the time within which the provider commits to notifying you of an incident affecting your data. These commitments must be written into the contract.

10. Which connected services process the data?

The platform may be secure in itself while documents pass through other services, such as notifications, storage or artificial intelligence. Ask about these services and their locations, and whether customer data is used to train models.

What does Signit offer for each question?

The following table shows what we provide at Signit, and what details you can request from our team as part of the evaluation.

How do you test the platform before adopting it?

Don't rely on written answers alone; test the platform with sample documents. Send a document for signing at different verification levels, then try to modify it after signing and check that the change is detected. Review the resulting audit trail, try out the different user permissions, and check that the signed document can be opened and verified in the applications the other party will use.

What are the common mistakes in evaluating signature platform security?

The most common mistake is settling for the general statements in marketing materials. Phrases such as "advanced encryption" or "bank-grade security" say nothing verifiable. What is needed are specific, documented answers: which standard, which certification, which scope, and which date.

Another is focusing on the platform and overlooking what surrounds it. The main platform may be hosted locally and well protected, while the support team works from outside the Kingdom and has access to the data, or notifications pass through external services. A complete evaluation covers everyone who accesses the data and every service that processes it.

Some teams make the mistake of confusing the security of the platform with the security of the signature itself. The platform may protect data well, but the signature it produces may be an image that does not reveal later changes. That is why both aspects are evaluated together. To learn more, see our article on the difference between digital and electronic signatures.

Finally, security commitments are sometimes left out of the contract. What a provider says in a proposal may not bind them unless it is written into the contract: the data location, the incident notification period, the right to audit, and the mechanism for retrieving and deleting data when the contract ends.

How does a security officer organize the evaluation?

Start by defining the organization's requirements and classifying its data, then send the ten questions to providers, evaluate the answers against documentation, test the platform in practice, and lock the results into the contract.

To link the evaluation to the full contract journey from creation to renewal, see our article on contract management from draft to archive.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

Evaluating the security of a signature platform goes beyond a general question about "security". It is a structured review of ten areas: licensing, hosting, identity, encryption, keys, permissions, auditing, certifications, testing and connected services. A security officer who asks for documented answers, tests the platform in practice and locks the commitments into the contract gives their organization a solid foundation for adopting e-signatures for its most sensitive documents.