A formal proposal aligns legal, technical, and business stakeholders on scope, mitigations, and measurable outcomes to reduce ambiguity and help ensure testing meets compliance and risk-management objectives.
The Security Lead coordinates test planning, approves scope, and validates findings. They liaise with developers, ops, and external testers to ensure evidence and remediation steps are documented and verified. They also ensure that sensitive artifacts are handled according to policy and retained for audits.
The Project Manager schedules tasks, manages stakeholder communication, and tracks milestones. They ensure that access windows, approvals, and resource allocation are in place to prevent unnecessary delays while maintaining alignment with contractual and regulatory delivery obligations.
Security testing proposals serve technical teams, compliance functions, executive sponsors, and external auditors who require clarity on risk and deliverables.
A well-structured proposal helps each party understand responsibilities, timelines, and acceptance criteria before tests begin.
Specify allowed signer authentication such as email OTP, SMS verification, or identity-provider SSO. Include steps for verifying researcher identities and for restricting signing to authorized test leads to preserve chain of custody for signed agreements and approvals.
Define encryption, password protection, and watermarking for test artifacts. Clarify whether attachments, logs, and screenshots must be redacted or stored in encrypted repositories to limit exposure of sensitive production data.
Require comprehensive, immutable audit logs that capture signer identity, timestamps, IP addresses, and document version history. Specify retention length to support compliance reviews and potential incident investigations.
State how long signed reports and evidence will be retained and the storage location. Include criteria for archival versus deletion to satisfy internal policy and regulatory requirements such as HIPAA or FERPA where applicable.
| Feature | Configuration |
|---|---|
| Default signature authentication method configuration | Email OTP |
| Reminder frequency and escalation configuration | 48 hours |
| Retention duration for signed test reports | 7 years |
| Access expiration for tester credentials | 30 days |
| Document watermarking and redaction configuration | Enabled |
A financial services firm requested a comprehensive security test of its customer portal and APIs to meet quarterly compliance requirements
Resulting in reduced attack surface and demonstrable evidence for auditors
A SaaS company producing a software testing proposal for security to onboard a major client required SOC-style evidence
Leading to contract approval and cleared production deployment
| Criteria | signNow (Recommended) | DocuSign |
|---|---|---|
| Legally binding under ESIGN and UETA | ||
| HIPAA-compliant deployment options | ||
| Bulk send or automated distribution | ||
| API for automated workflow integration | REST API | REST API |
| Pricing Tier | signNow (Featured) | DocuSign | Adobe Sign | Dropbox Sign | OneSpan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry-level monthly price per user | Starting at $8/user/month | Starting at $10/user/month | Starting at $9.99/user/month | Starting at $8/user/month | Contact sales |
| API access availability | Included with Business plans | Available on most plans | Available on business plans | Available with API add-on | Available with enterprise |
| Document retention and storage options | Cloud storage with export options | Cloud and vaulting features | Cloud storage with integrations | Cloud storage integrated with Dropbox | On-prem and cloud options |
| Advanced authentication options | MFA, SSO, SMS OTP | MFA, SSO, KBA | MFA, SSO, KBA | SSO, basic MFA | PKI, hardware tokens |
| Compliance and certifications noted | SOC 2, HIPAA-ready | SOC 2, ISO 27001 | SOC 2, ISO 27001 | SOC 2 | FIPS, Common Criteria |
